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From my research, pound for pound rice takes less than almonds. Guess what crop California spends almost 50% of its water on? Alfalfa, which is used to feed ca

by sbov 11y ago

From my research, pound for pound rice takes less than almonds. Guess what crop California spends almost 50% of its water on? Alfalfa, which is used to feed cattle. Also, just cutting out beef can make a huge dent. It's water usage is truly wtf level, whereas chicken is closer to almond level.

yellowapple 11y ago
> Guess what crop California spends almost 50% of its water on? Alfalfa, which is used to feed cattle. Alfalfa isn't used for just cattle, you know. Also, do you have a source for that number? I'm having trouble finding one from a U.S. or California government source (USGS, USDA, CDFA, etc.), but at least one article [0] pins that number at closer to 15% (and almonds at 10%). > Also, just cutting out beef can make a huge dent. It's water usage is truly wtf level A citation is also needed here. According to the USGS's 2010 data (which admittedly is likely outdated), livestock as a whole (beef, chicken, pork, you name it) takes up around 0.5% of California's water [1]. Whether or not this includes alfalfa is unclear, but if the previous figure is correct, I'd suggest that cattle water usage is nowhere near the "WTF" level. That figure makes a lot of sense to me, having grown up raising angus cattle (I'm not sure whether or not dairy cattle have higher water requirements due to milk production being their emphasis). Alfalfa was certainly a big part of their feed, but grass hay and grazing were just as important to their diet. Larger commercial operations might have different methods, but I'd reckon that most ranches aren't high-scale commercial operations. [0]: 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... [1]: http://ca.water.usgs.gov/water_use/2010-california-water-use.html http://ca.water.usgs.gov/water_use/2010-california-water-use...
- sbov 11y ago
  > Also, do you have a source for that number? I'm having trouble finding one from a U.S. or California government source (USGS, USDA, CDFA, etc.), but at least one article [0] pins that number at closer to 15% (and almonds at 10%). I got my numbers a bit mixed up. According to: http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ftprint_full_report3.pdf http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ft... Meat and dairy uses 47% of California's water. I'm not sure how I transplanted that into Alfalfa alone. > I'd suggest that cattle water usage is nowhere near the "WTF" level. Here I'm merely speaking on how much water it takes to produce a pound of the product. From what I can tell chicken is around 500 gallons of water per pound, but beef is more like 1,500+ - I was mostly looking at waterfootprint.org, but other sources seem to back up these estimates. Chicken is at least close to almonds, which people are freaking out about since its several times other options, but beef is 3x chicken. Hence, WTF level. Lets do some math. I have some friends who live in San Francisco, which (going off memory) has an average water consumption of 50 gallons of water/day/person. But some eat steak for dinner every day of the week, probably around 12 ounces. At 1,500 gallons of water per pound, thats 1,125 gallons of water for their meal. If they switched that to chicken, assuming the same number of ounces (not sure if we can do this though - if people need to eat more ounces of chicken than beef) and 500 gallons per pound, thats 375 gallons of water. A savings of 750 gallons of water per day. They just reduced their personal water footprint by many times what the water utility sees. They could 100% cut out flushing toilets, taking showers, doing the dishes, doing laundry, and not come even close to what eating chicken instead of beef does. I've seen some maps comparing SoCal water usage vs NorCal. Going off memory, 50 gallons vs 100-150 gallons day/person. The reality is, the gap between 50 and 150 is covered by choosing to eat chicken over beef 4 times a month. Dietary water footprint is much more significant than what our water utilities show us.

by sbov 11y ago

yellowapple 11y ago

> Guess what crop California spends almost 50% of its water on? Alfalfa, which is used to feed cattle. Alfalfa isn't used for just cattle, you know. Also, do you have a source for that number? I'm having trouble finding one from a U.S. or California government source (USGS, USDA, CDFA, etc.), but at least one article [0] pins that number at closer to 15% (and almonds at 10%). > Also, just cutting out beef can make a huge dent. It's water usage is truly wtf level A citation is also needed here. According to the USGS's 2010 data (which admittedly is likely outdated), livestock as a whole (beef, chicken, pork, you name it) takes up around 0.5% of California's water [1]. Whether or not this includes alfalfa is unclear, but if the previous figure is correct, I'd suggest that cattle water usage is nowhere near the "WTF" level. That figure makes a lot of sense to me, having grown up raising angus cattle (I'm not sure whether or not dairy cattle have higher water requirements due to milk production being their emphasis). Alfalfa was certainly a big part of their feed, but grass hay and grazing were just as important to their diet. Larger commercial operations might have different methods, but I'd reckon that most ranches aren't high-scale commercial operations. [0]: 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... [1]: http://ca.water.usgs.gov/water_use/2010-california-water-use.html http://ca.water.usgs.gov/water_use/2010-california-water-use...

sbov 11y ago
> Also, do you have a source for that number? I'm having trouble finding one from a U.S. or California government source (USGS, USDA, CDFA, etc.), but at least one article [0] pins that number at closer to 15% (and almonds at 10%). I got my numbers a bit mixed up. According to: http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ftprint_full_report3.pdf http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ft... Meat and dairy uses 47% of California's water. I'm not sure how I transplanted that into Alfalfa alone. > I'd suggest that cattle water usage is nowhere near the "WTF" level. Here I'm merely speaking on how much water it takes to produce a pound of the product. From what I can tell chicken is around 500 gallons of water per pound, but beef is more like 1,500+ - I was mostly looking at waterfootprint.org, but other sources seem to back up these estimates. Chicken is at least close to almonds, which people are freaking out about since its several times other options, but beef is 3x chicken. Hence, WTF level. Lets do some math. I have some friends who live in San Francisco, which (going off memory) has an average water consumption of 50 gallons of water/day/person. But some eat steak for dinner every day of the week, probably around 12 ounces. At 1,500 gallons of water per pound, thats 1,125 gallons of water for their meal. If they switched that to chicken, assuming the same number of ounces (not sure if we can do this though - if people need to eat more ounces of chicken than beef) and 500 gallons per pound, thats 375 gallons of water. A savings of 750 gallons of water per day. They just reduced their personal water footprint by many times what the water utility sees. They could 100% cut out flushing toilets, taking showers, doing the dishes, doing laundry, and not come even close to what eating chicken instead of beef does. I've seen some maps comparing SoCal water usage vs NorCal. Going off memory, 50 gallons vs 100-150 gallons day/person. The reality is, the gap between 50 and 150 is covered by choosing to eat chicken over beef 4 times a month. Dietary water footprint is much more significant than what our water utilities show us.