4 ms·

California produces almost all the almonds eaten in the United States, indeed, the world (80% of the world's supply). It does not produce that much beef or chi

California produces almost all the almonds eaten in the United States, indeed, the world (80% of the world's supply). It does not produce that much beef or chicken. Thus.

joshu 12y ago
Please don't present your beliefs as facts. Texas is #1 with 11m head of cattle. California is #4 at 5m. 632 lbs production per head * 5.2m cattle = 1.6m tons. US production of almonds = 1.4m tons. You can't reason about amounts merely by looking at normalized numbers. Billion dollar company X is growing 2% a year, and million dollar company Y is growing 5% a year. Only in normalized numbers is one more than the other. In absolute numbers this is not the case.
- Yver 12y ago
  Can either of you give a source backing your argument?
  - toby 12y ago
    They're both right: http://www.cattlerange.com/cattle-graphs/all-cattle-numbers.html http://www.cattlerange.com/cattle-graphs/all-cattle-numbers.... California is #5, containing 5.7% (down a fair bit from a year ago) of all cattle in the US.
- aetherson 12y ago
  So... you're agreeing with me that California does not produce anything vaguely like 80% of all the cattle in the world?
  - curun1r 12y ago
    It's fairly obvious that more beef is consumed in the world than almonds. Thus, 80% of the world's almonds doesn't necessarily consume more water than the much smaller percent of the world's beef produced in California. If anything, it argues that beef shouldn't be produced in California since there are other producers of beef that can pick up the slack whereas there isn't likely to be (an)other producer(s) of almonds that can handle the world's demand if California were to cease production of almonds.
  - joshu 12y ago
    You said it doesn't produce that much. That is untrue.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      5.7% of the US supply vs. 80% of the world supply... What exactly are you calling untrue? (Note that California cattle are not anywhere close in absolute water use either.)
      - joshu 12y ago
        Percentages are not amounts. He said it does not have that much cattle.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  That doesn't contradict what the grandparent poster presented, which was that California provides the vast majority of the world's almond supply, but not nearly as much beef or chicken. Pointing out that California is the fourth largest US state in cattle doesn't even approach contradicting that (indeed, its pretty good evidence that it is not as dominant of a beef provider as an almond provider.) Now, if you want to argue that the claim about share of the world almond market is irrelevant and that what we should compare is the water demand of California's almond supply vs. the water demand of beef/chicken, that's a different point. But you shouldn't criticize the parent poster for presenting their belief as fact, and then counter with a fact claim that doesn't even contradict the fact claim they presented.
  - joshu 12y ago
    "It does not produce that much beef or chicken" It produces quite a bit of beef. A percentage is not an amount or measurement of production.
    - Crito 12y ago
      The percentage is important. I don't live in California, but lets assume that the percentage of American beef that California produces matches up with the percentage of the beef I eat that is from California. I think that is more than generous. So 5.7% of the beef I eat is Californian. The majority of the rest is raised in areas with their own independent water supplies. Let's assume that the percentage of almonds that are from California matches up with the percentage of the world's almonds that are Californian. This is more than generous, as I wager exceptionally few of the almonds that I eat are imported, since the US exports almonds... So 80% of the almonds that I eat are Californian. If you want to defend almond-eating and condemn my beef-eating, those statistics are going to be a problem for you. California could completely ban all cows within California and ban the export of Alfalfa for all I care. The price increase would not particularly bother me. If California halted production of almonds, I don't think almond-eaters would be very happy at all. For the record, I would support California doing both.
      - 12y ago
- ninguem2 12y ago
  Since most cattle in California is dairy, not beef, your numbers don't disprove his statement.
- adamnemecek 12y ago
  What are you talking about? He says: California produces 80% of all almonds produced in the world. It does not produce 80% of all beef produced in the world.
sp332 12y ago
So, they could stop beef and chicken production without crashing the local economy or depriving the market of meat, freeing up scarce water to sustain almond production?
- toby 12y ago
  It appears this is already happening. Beef production is declining in CA and some farmers are switching from grass-fed to importing feed from other states.
- aetherson 12y ago
  Sure, it could. I mean, it could also stop producing almonds without crashing the local economy. But, sure. Look, according to Slate, almonds use 1.1 trillion gallons of water per year in CA. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/0... There are 5,000,000ish head of cattle in CA. This thing: http://www.uaex.edu/publications/pdf/fsa-3021.pdf http://www.uaex.edu/publications/pdf/fsa-3021.pdf suggests that the most water that any cow needs per day is 20 gallons. 20 x 365 x 5million = 36.5 billion gallons of water per year. Let's assume that that's holy shit an order of magnitude low, and it's 365 billion gallons of water per year -- so it's still only 1/3rd the amount of water that almonds use. And thus, we talk about the amount of water that almonds use.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Sure, that's absolute numbers. But from a gallons-per-calorie point of view Almonds are more efficient. A social engineer would still want to discourage meat production.
    - aetherson 12y ago
      Maybe a social engineer who wanted to lower worldwide water consumption would. But a social engineer who wanted to deal with California's drought would want to cope with almonds.
MBlume 12y ago
California exports a lot of alfalfa to support beef production elsewhere, but even so, if you buy, say, grass-fed beef from New Zealand (I assume New Zealand's not suffering a draught?) you're fine
- baldeagle 12y ago
  New Zealand is actually suffering a pretty bad drought. One of the towns actually just up and ran out of water one day last month. (I know, cause I was there and it was weird). I guess this is such a common event that it doesn't even make the news anymore. See this article from 2012: http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/water-restrictions-in-franz-joseph-after-town-runs-dry-2012011117 http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/water-restrictions-in-franz-jo...
- prawn 12y ago
  I can't imagine NZ are suffering from a drought. A few years back, I visited my brother in Auckland in a time when we had water restrictions at home (in South Australia). Water was cheap there and in no danger of running short, so I got the impression that there was as much as you wanted to pay for. Which meant he'd often relax by standing in the shower drinking a beer. Back home, councils were handing out water-saving shower heads, people could only water their gardens on alternating days, emptying dams made the news, etc.

California produces almost all the almonds eaten in the United States, indeed, the world (80% of the world's supply). It does not produce that much beef or chicken. Thus.

joshu 12y ago

Please don't present your beliefs as facts. Texas is #1 with 11m head of cattle. California is #4 at 5m. 632 lbs production per head * 5.2m cattle = 1.6m tons. US production of almonds = 1.4m tons. You can't reason about amounts merely by looking at normalized numbers. Billion dollar company X is growing 2% a year, and million dollar company Y is growing 5% a year. Only in normalized numbers is one more than the other. In absolute numbers this is not the case.

Yver 12y ago
Can either of you give a source backing your argument?
- toby 12y ago
  They're both right: http://www.cattlerange.com/cattle-graphs/all-cattle-numbers.html http://www.cattlerange.com/cattle-graphs/all-cattle-numbers.... California is #5, containing 5.7% (down a fair bit from a year ago) of all cattle in the US.
aetherson 12y ago
So... you're agreeing with me that California does not produce anything vaguely like 80% of all the cattle in the world?
- curun1r 12y ago
  It's fairly obvious that more beef is consumed in the world than almonds. Thus, 80% of the world's almonds doesn't necessarily consume more water than the much smaller percent of the world's beef produced in California. If anything, it argues that beef shouldn't be produced in California since there are other producers of beef that can pick up the slack whereas there isn't likely to be (an)other producer(s) of almonds that can handle the world's demand if California were to cease production of almonds.
- joshu 12y ago
  You said it doesn't produce that much. That is untrue.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    5.7% of the US supply vs. 80% of the world supply... What exactly are you calling untrue? (Note that California cattle are not anywhere close in absolute water use either.)
    - joshu 12y ago
      Percentages are not amounts. He said it does not have that much cattle.
dragonwriter 12y ago
That doesn't contradict what the grandparent poster presented, which was that California provides the vast majority of the world's almond supply, but not nearly as much beef or chicken. Pointing out that California is the fourth largest US state in cattle doesn't even approach contradicting that (indeed, its pretty good evidence that it is not as dominant of a beef provider as an almond provider.) Now, if you want to argue that the claim about share of the world almond market is irrelevant and that what we should compare is the water demand of California's almond supply vs. the water demand of beef/chicken, that's a different point. But you shouldn't criticize the parent poster for presenting their belief as fact, and then counter with a fact claim that doesn't even contradict the fact claim they presented.
- joshu 12y ago
  "It does not produce that much beef or chicken" It produces quite a bit of beef. A percentage is not an amount or measurement of production.
  - Crito 12y ago
    The percentage is important. I don't live in California, but lets assume that the percentage of American beef that California produces matches up with the percentage of the beef I eat that is from California. I think that is more than generous. So 5.7% of the beef I eat is Californian. The majority of the rest is raised in areas with their own independent water supplies. Let's assume that the percentage of almonds that are from California matches up with the percentage of the world's almonds that are Californian. This is more than generous, as I wager exceptionally few of the almonds that I eat are imported, since the US exports almonds... So 80% of the almonds that I eat are Californian. If you want to defend almond-eating and condemn my beef-eating, those statistics are going to be a problem for you. California could completely ban all cows within California and ban the export of Alfalfa for all I care. The price increase would not particularly bother me. If California halted production of almonds, I don't think almond-eaters would be very happy at all. For the record, I would support California doing both.
    - 12y ago
ninguem2 12y ago
Since most cattle in California is dairy, not beef, your numbers don't disprove his statement.
adamnemecek 12y ago
What are you talking about? He says: California produces 80% of all almonds produced in the world. It does not produce 80% of all beef produced in the world.

sp332 12y ago

So, they could stop beef and chicken production without crashing the local economy or depriving the market of meat, freeing up scarce water to sustain almond production?

toby 12y ago
It appears this is already happening. Beef production is declining in CA and some farmers are switching from grass-fed to importing feed from other states.
aetherson 12y ago
Sure, it could. I mean, it could also stop producing almonds without crashing the local economy. But, sure. Look, according to Slate, almonds use 1.1 trillion gallons of water per year in CA. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/0... There are 5,000,000ish head of cattle in CA. This thing: http://www.uaex.edu/publications/pdf/fsa-3021.pdf http://www.uaex.edu/publications/pdf/fsa-3021.pdf suggests that the most water that any cow needs per day is 20 gallons. 20 x 365 x 5million = 36.5 billion gallons of water per year. Let's assume that that's holy shit an order of magnitude low, and it's 365 billion gallons of water per year -- so it's still only 1/3rd the amount of water that almonds use. And thus, we talk about the amount of water that almonds use.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Sure, that's absolute numbers. But from a gallons-per-calorie point of view Almonds are more efficient. A social engineer would still want to discourage meat production.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    Maybe a social engineer who wanted to lower worldwide water consumption would. But a social engineer who wanted to deal with California's drought would want to cope with almonds.

MBlume 12y ago

California exports a lot of alfalfa to support beef production elsewhere, but even so, if you buy, say, grass-fed beef from New Zealand (I assume New Zealand's not suffering a draught?) you're fine

baldeagle 12y ago
New Zealand is actually suffering a pretty bad drought. One of the towns actually just up and ran out of water one day last month. (I know, cause I was there and it was weird). I guess this is such a common event that it doesn't even make the news anymore. See this article from 2012: http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/water-restrictions-in-franz-joseph-after-town-runs-dry-2012011117 http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/water-restrictions-in-franz-jo...
prawn 12y ago
I can't imagine NZ are suffering from a drought. A few years back, I visited my brother in Auckland in a time when we had water restrictions at home (in South Australia). Water was cheap there and in no danger of running short, so I got the impression that there was as much as you wanted to pay for. Which meant he'd often relax by standing in the shower drinking a beer. Back home, councils were handing out water-saving shower heads, people could only water their gardens on alternating days, emptying dams made the news, etc.