There are various measures of water usage for various crops. Commonly you have "water usage per kilogram of crops" and "acre feet of irrigation water per acre o

There are various measures of water usage for various crops. Commonly you have "water usage per kilogram of crops" and "acre feet of irrigation water per acre of farming land" but these aren't that useful (IMHO). A far more useful measure if "water usage per kilocalorie" since that's really waht matters and this varies a ton from food source to food source [1]. The "use it or lose it" system of water rights for agriculture in the Colorado River basin creates warped incentives, which is to maximize water usage rather than the economic value of the crop or the calorie content of that crop. It's clear we can use a ton less water and still feed people in a way that's economically viable for the farmers. But no one wants to give up the water because once it's gone, it's gone. This situation has real impacts where some in California, for example, were floating the iea of using desalination to provide potable water for people rather than the far cheaper and more obvious solution of just using less water on water-intensive crops. All of this is just superficial responsibility shifting. [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/scarcity-water-use-kcals https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/scarcity-water-use-kcals