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Someone somewhere is going to do a study on the effectiveness of this propaganda. I think it must be cognitive dissonance. Animal agriculture uses almost ten ti
by thinkingtoilet 2y ago
Someone somewhere is going to do a study on the effectiveness of this propaganda. I think it must be cognitive dissonance. Animal agriculture uses almost ten times the amount of water and land usage than plant agriculture on average. No, almonds aren't the problem. Cows are. They use more land. They use more water. The emit more green house gases.
This is a coordinated effort by the beef/dairy industry to blame anyone but themselves and the people who consume their products are happy to pass the blame. If you actually care about water usage, go after the people who are using the most water, not physiologically convenient scapegoats.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- PM_me_your_math 2y ago[dead]
- Hnrobert42 2y ago>This is a coordinated effort by the beef/dairy... Is that true? I had not heard about this. Are there records of campaign donations or the like? Is this just speculation?
- darby_nine 2y ago?? Can you link to anywhere where they accept blame for their emissions?
- Hnrobert42 2y agoNot accepting blame and colluding with competitors to sew disinformation is a false equivalence.
- darby_nine 2y agoThe material effects are identical. I don't understand why it matters if they collude or not. Maybe we should just fix the law.
- lizknope 2y agohttps://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/contributors/valley-voice/2023/02/05/growing-alfalfa-in-imperial-county-and-california-wastes-water/69860506007/ https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion/contributors/valley-... Alfalfa is used to feed farm animals like pigs and cows. But we export 70% of what we grow in California to Japan and China. The Japanese raise Kobe beef with it and send it back to us for $200 per pound. The Chinese use it to raise pigs to meet their rapidly expanding demand for pork as they become more affluent and eat more meat. Why don’t they grow their own alfalfa? Because they are short of water and it is so much cheaper to buy ours. In fact, alfalfa has become an instrument for exporting subsidized water.
- Dalewyn 2y ago>Why don’t they grow their own alfalfa? Because they are short of water In Japan's case it's because they are short on land owing to the fact they're on small islands, of which the inland areas are mostly mountains. They have limitless water.
- packetlost 2y agoLast time I checked you can't irrigate with salt water and the process of desalination is expensive at scale. I don't know how much fresh water their climate has, but it's definitely not "limitless"
- Jensson 2y agoJapan has about 10x the amount of freshwater as California, California is a desert with very little freshwater, most places has way more, even islands like Japan.
- packetlost 2y agoThat doesn't really negate my point, but it does mean it's less relevant to the discussion. Northern California is not really a desert though, which is where the majority of the agriculture is, no?
- _heimdall 2y agoIndustrial feed lots are the problem to be more specific. We can't lump together all ways animals can be raised and say cows are the problem when the real culprit is one method of raising cattle. I raise cattle on pasture and 95% of the time they're drinking from our ponds that are filled by a combination of rainwater and natural springs. Cows aren't the problem. Industrial cattle production based on feedlots and an insanely centralized infrastructure is.
- kristjansson 2y agoThe stat GP is alluding to isn’t even about drinking water, it’s mostly about the water required to grow feed.
- _heimdall 2y agoThanks, I may have just misread that. I have the same argument though. For our cattle we give very little feed, depending on the time of year their diet will only have 5-10% supplemental feed, and that's just enough to keep them trained to come when called. We've kept stock density at a rate that our cattle can eat almost entirely from our pastures and woods. If we absolutely do have to buy hay, we buy it from a local guy who has a field he doesn't spray or irrigate. Its effectively a field behind his house that he otherwise doesn't use for hay, most people around here want sprayed and fertilized fields that are monocropped fescue or bahia. We aren't doing everything right by any means, but cows absolutely can be raised without causing so many of the problems that industrial lots cause. Its too easy to see those problems and demonize everything about raising cattle.
- kristjansson 2y agoTotally, I think we're making the same point. The average water intensity of livestock does not matter; what does matter is how much of that demand is met by water that could otherwise be withdrawn for human use.
- dgacmu 2y agoAnalyzing the industry is tricky, though - do you sell to a feedlot, or raise on pasture to slaughter? (Most cow/calf operations sell to a feedlot, but you sound like you may be keeping them all the way?) The drawback to fully pasture-raised is more methane, of course, but.. I've got no idea how to put that on a reasonable comparison to water use.
- kristjansson 2y agoA calorie of beef requires more total input water than a calorie of grain, sure, but that input water is mostly embodied in their feed, not their drinking water. The question for California a what to grow with the water we have, where it is (or where it can be moved). An acre of cows is a much, much less water intensive than an acre of grains. More acres in pasture might produce more water intensive calories, but that input water does not necessarily have to be provided in CA where it’s rivalrous with 50m humans. Feed can be imported/exported with orders of magnitude more ease than the underlying embodied input water. Agricultural water is not a fungible resource at the national/global scale, crops and animal products are. Also as a matter of policy “turn the world vegan so global ag is less water intensive so CA farms don’t compete with CA people for water as much” is a bit harder to implement than restricting specific water intensive land uses in the Central Valley.
- thinkingtoilet 2y ago>but that input water is mostly embodied in their feed, not their drinking water. So? The feed doesn't magically appear. It requires water. That's the entire point.
- atmavatar 2y agoThe point is that the feed crops can be grown in areas with abundant water and shipped elsewhere, so cattle don't have to be a significant contributor to local water shortages.
- aziaziazi 2y agoCrops don’t move themselves, they require trucks and ships. Importing 1 plant to feed a human is less water and energy intensive than importing 10 plants to feed a cow to feed a human.
- kristjansson 2y agoIrrefutably. The problem is people prefer to eat the cow. And while it's nice to imagine a different world, "everyone should just want different things" is not really a valid policy prescription to solve specific land- and water-use questions.
- _aavaa_ 2y agoA) Pointing out a large problem with one field is not me spreading propaganda. As others have mentioned, look at where the alfalfa goes and we're on the same page. B) I'm totally fine point the finger at the beef and dairy industry, ultimately the entirety of your comment does not change my point. Agriculture uses 80%, focusing on city use is going after a politically convenient solution which will do little to address much of the issue.
- leereeves 2y agoThis is all beside the point though. California isn't choosing between agriculture and livestock (at least in the policies discussed in TFA), they're placing restrictions on residential use.
- fmajid 2y agoAlfalfa is grown for cows. In this case by Saudi-owned companies that ship it to feed cows in Saudi Arabia, in a form on water-laundering.