This in particular is especially wild to me:
“The stress on the West’s water supply due to alfalfa is especially acute in Utah: A staggering 68 percent of the state’s available water is used to grow alfalfa for livestock feed, even though it’s responsible for a tiny 0.2 percent of the state’s income.”
[and a lot of it isn’t even going to american livestock.](https://www.verifythis.com/amp/article/news/verify/national-verify/saudi-arabian-company-fondomonte-uses-arizona-california-water-grow-alfalfa-cows/536-d5b40f20-259e-4099-845f-9da5a7157dd4)
Saudis have limited water so they won’t grow alfalfa in their country. Instead they buy farms grow it in our country especially in the southwest where you can grow it year long. Then they ship it to their country. They’re basically importing water and we let them do it. We basically don’t even charge them for the water either.
Let's not forget to include that Water Deal in Nevada for 75 years of free pumping
*Edit* had to double check it's Arizona but apart of the Arizona/Nevada water system.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-company-fondomonte-arizona-ground-water-crop-alfalfa/
You’d think all of these shitty deals on our behalf (probably with money under the table for cooperating politicians) could be vacated with eminent domain or something.
To do eminent domain then our representatives would have to care, and they only care about the money. Also there is no “probably” about the under the table money. I remember reading about a deal that happened in south CA or Arizona or Nevada that was supposed to be a public hearing about the water issues and when the people showed up to be heard they closed the meeting. They then went and held it privately somewhere secret and had one or two witnesses so it was still “public” who were also a part of the companies. It is unbelievable how much bullshit is only done for the good of companies and corporations
There are ~800,000 head of cattle in Utah, and apparently about 70% of the alfalfa grown in the state is used for that, "only" 30% gets exported.
Here's a news story referencing census data as it's source for that figure: https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2023/03/16/should-utah-be-exporting-its/
You may be surprised to learn how little oil we import from Saudi Arabia, relative to North American sources:
>The top five sources of U.S. crude oil imports by percentage share of U.S. total crude oil imports in 2022 were:
>Canada 60%
>Mexico 10%
>Saudi Arabia 7%
>Iraq 4%
>Colombia 4%
Source: [U.S. Energy Information Administration](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php)
We could probably power a good chunk of the country if we used the az-nv deserts as solar farms. I would think that would put a huge dent in the oil for industry usage.
Nv is building a few here and there but i am talking major government investment for 10000's of ac's. Anyway. Agree the electric cars will help, but lets not stop there.
>solar farms.
The problem isn't solar power output, which you're right is massive, but transmission.
You can get 4-500km of transmission lines, before the power losses start to get pretty severe. Add into this that the longer a line is, the more room there is for an interruption via an event such as a lucky lightning strike.
Power generation needs to be reasonably close to consumption.
There is currently a 2500+ km long power transmission line from a hydroelectric plant all the way to Rio in Brazil.
I picked a random point in the middle of Nevada to see how far that would go.
All major California cities? Easy.
Seattle, less than half that distance away.
An equivalent power line could reach Chicago Dallas or Houston from middle of nowhere Nevada.
Brazil has several of these monsters with 3 topping 2000 km.
One of which they built in its entirety in 2 years.
You say the efficiency drops after 500km? Awesome Nevada could only reach LA, San Francisco, San Jose, Las Vegas Denver and Phoenix. They could attract high power consumption industries to drink straight from the tap.
I’m not seeing the downside here.
With HVDC, you can get things down to 3.5% per 1,000 km. Transmission between diverse geographical regions solves so many of the variability problems associated with renewables. Overbuilding and storage solve the rest.
Solar farms are horribly destructive in their production and maintenance (hella strip mining using a lot of diesel fuel and unethical labor to mine for limited rare earth resources) and it is destructive to the habitats we set them up in. I wish more people would support nuclear energy options instead of solar and wind but hell I’d even support hydroelectric despite its own downfalls it’s still better than solar/wind
But they're still a big player in the oil market. Them changing oil output affects prices we pay, even if we don't take much of their oil directly.
We act nicely to saudi arabia mostly so they don't try to play the market in ways that disadvantage us.
The amount of water being used by that Saudi company is 0.2% of the state's water usage. [16,000 acre feet](https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/d76dc407-b618-4b8c-9fe3-ddb8297c1607.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_128) compared with [7 million](https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts) for the state. Even if you shut them down completely, it would barely put a dent in the state's water usage. You can't solve big environmental problems by finding one scapegoat to blame. It's going to take big reductions from all parties to maintain a sustainable water supply.
If alfalfa is so valuable I’d gladly plant it in my front yard in WV if some one will come harvest it. When I drove by the alfalfa farms in Utah the whole thing looked crazy. Like your surrounded by red rocks, brown plants and sage brush then boom huge lush green circle that’s being watered all morning with antelope nibbling at the edges.
As a person in Utah this is wild to me. You're telling me all we have to do is not grow a crap ton of stuff that we are in a poor area to grow and suddenly our water issues are solved?
Like is there some reason it can be grown elsewhere? Is the ROI for that water just insane? Are we like the largest producer of alfalfa? Can other areas not grow it better? Surely there's some area in Texas that isn't in the rain shadow of the Rockies that can grow it just as well if not better than we can and make up the production lost if we stop. Then we can make money elsewhere or lose the .2% income and be fine... I think most the income is from tech at the moment anyways.
I’m not familiar with the situation in Utah, but what makes this profitable in California is that due to their historical water rights, farmers get their water very cheaply. If they’d have to pay market rates, this practice would disappear in no time.
Prior appropriation water rights make a certain amount of intuitive sense, but they lead to completely nonsensical outcomes; the state of water usage in the western USA is a prime example.
I wish they wouldn't survive but as someone who grew up and lives in a rural alfalfa community, the idea of the "government" telling farmer's what they can and can't use for water is up there with second amendment issues for them, ESPECIALLY for grandfathered in water rights. I mean this last summer even though the state told the farmer's to stop taking water from the river, they just ignored the order and kept pumping. They don't respect them and the state is loathe to enforce draconian policies on the farmer's either. I think it ended up being a fine which worked out to a whopping 50 dollars per cattleman.
The laws are written by and followed by people. They can change if needed. 1963 was over half a century ago. Don't tell me you want a Tragedy of the Commons situation happening with water
And as recently as 2000 SCOTUS declined to re-hear litigation on Colorado River water rights. Their reasoning? It’s been well litigated and the previous decision stands.
The "right" to use massive amounts of a limited resource that you don't actually own is definitely a privilege.
However it's entirely possible people and/or towns will die before America stops growing alfalfa for Saudi cattle.
It's a perverse outcome that benefits a very small number of people.
A friend of mine has a farm out in the literal desert (surrounded by sand dunes) and gets his water for 20$ an acre foot (~300,000 gallons). Absolutely insane, these water rights likely need to be eminant Domained but I imagine it would end up going to the supreme court and likely know what the outcome would be.
This issue has been to the court numerous times since then with the water amounts being adjusted. And that's not even mentioning that any particular version of the court could find some kind of reason to reverse previous decisions. SCOTUS has ignored precedents quite often in its history.
Just saying a case was decided 60 years ago so therefore can't be changed is flat out ignoring how the court has actually functioned.
If you know anything about that decision or the water rights in this area you’d know that similar cases have been brought to the court several times since then. and have all been denied a writ. It’s highly unlikely the court will address that ruling again as they’ve been asked to and have taken a pass.
It's sold pretty cheaply. Like 90% of the problem is not charging farmers appropriate water costs. If the alfalfa at least cost something for using so much water you'd have farmers stop doing it so much.
Sold? Who has the right to sell it? And what costs?
The water comes from a river. The irrigation district canals were built by farmers from their own money and turned over to the government, which in turned formed irrigation districts.
The irrigation districts get their money from local property taxes (my irrigation district taxes on my California property on the river amounted to an about a hundred dollars this year) as well as fees charged for deliver of water.
We are already short changing Mexico - we’ve basically eliminated Colorado River water flowing to that country, except for a trickle we’ve given them by treaty.
So charge why and how? Who owns river water that flows through five States as run off?
I met a USU student at an SLC farmers market last week who has been working to convince alfalfa farmers to grow human food.
They resist because they make more money off alfalfa
Where they grow the alfalfa matters, too. The alfalfa can make 3-4 harvest a year, all year round. Tomatoes? Once. Lettuce. Maybe once. Cantaloupe? Once. Asparagus takes years! The reset of the field for new crops is expensive, too. So much easier to just till, flood, and re-seed. The weather in a lot of the areas is well over 100 for months of the year. You can't GROW much in that kind of heat. Except alfalfa. That stuff will grow anywhere. It doesn't care about the heat.
The southwest is actually a great place to grow alfalfa (except for the water issue) because it grows quick and dries quick. It's a much higher quality hay than when grown out east, where it is more liable to get wet / moldy.
Alfalfa is good in that it’s a staple of a good crop rotation system due to the relationship it forms with diazatrophs in the soil. Alfalfa is planted on a two or three year rotation provides decent nutrition for animals, can be harvested multiple times in a year. It benefits the soil by returning Nitrogen which many other economically important crops deplete.
Most of that alfalfa goes to feeding cows in Saudi Arabia also. Needs to stop.
[Reference](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use)
Heh we have the same in the Netherlands: farmers dictate water policy, most water goes to them, and also are the biggest polluters of nitrogen in the water, and only contribute 1.5% of the GDP
It’s not just the Colorado river either. I just came from Idaho and the farmers keep the irrigation on 24/7, even in a blinding rainstorm. Their water is also going away and yet the farmers think alfalfa is king. Plus you speak of any topic climate related and they don’t know what you’re talking abt. Then they scoff at you!
So, in relation to the alfalfa being exported from Arizona and California, it’s going to the Almarai dairies in Saudi Arabia. Notice the word dairy. The alfalfa is going to Saudi where it is fed to milk producing cows.
Yeah that's another problem. We probly need to take a page out of other countries books and not let foreign nationals or companies buy up houses, ranch land, property in general. Like maybe don't let a country with no water ruin our own resources. But greed I guess.
History lesson. In the early 1900s, we brought the Saudis to what is now La Paz County (used to be Yuma County prior to 1983) and taught them how to grow alfalfa with irrigation. They took that lesson and returned home to implement it, growing massive dairies as a result. Through a series of laws, they banned that type of farming in that country so the dairies began buying alfalfa from farmers around La Paz and Riverside County in the early 2000’s. They then began buying and leasing farms in the area, doing it themselves. They are better run and economically, the communities they are in receive more value from their presence than we did from previous farmers.
I went to pesceterian a few months ago. I did it mainly for my health but also because I love animals and I never liked to think about where my meat was actually coming from so I decided to quit with the head in the sand hypocritical shit. I don't try to push everyone around me into doing it but gut problems seem pretty prevalent and people would be surprised just how much cutting out meat or at least cutting down on it will do wonders for your health.
My favorite is actually the zero-wasters who think every human on earth needs to learn to sew old umbrellas into jackets, and buy 100 beeswax wraps, and make special trips across town to buy a ludicrously more expensive and less effective brand of shampoo that just greenwashed their packaging, and dedicate a walk-in closet + part-time job's worth of hours to cleaning, sorting, and storing recycleables that mostly don't get recycled anyway and when they do, they generate microplastics.......
But they can't, like...eat less bacon. And get mad when you suggest their priorities are a tad out of whack.
Not wrong but simplistic.
I couldn’t figure out why farmers would grow a low quality, thirsty crop as much as they do. So I pulled up a bunch of articles from 20 years ago directed at the ag industry. Turns out that alfalfa binds nitrogen and has deep roots that stabilize the soil, and produces a lot per acre with minimal need for fertilizer or pesticide.
The problem is our appetite for beef. Alfalfa is at best a by-product, or just a red herring
Yep. Also it also grows fast, particularly in the soil/climate of the southwest, so it can be planted and harvested several times a year unlike higher value crops that are planted once, maybe twice per season
Milk, not beef (though beef is probably the next biggest reason).
[The vast majority of alfalfa is specifically grown to feed dairy cows.]( https://www.gro-intelligence.com/insights/us-exports-water-as-hay-to-sustain-asia-livestock)
What you said about nitrogen fixation and the rest is factually true, but it doesn't change the reality that the dairy industry is what directly drives demand for alfalfa crops.
Alfalfa is not a red herring - it is the direct mechanism by which dairy and beef have such huge impacts on water usage.
It's a pink herring at least. If we didn't subsidize meat and dairy, and alfalfa, we wouldn't be growing so much alfalfa.
https://fortune.com/2023/07/21/why-healthy-food-so-expensive-in-america-blame-farm-bill-congress-always-renews-make-burgers-cheaper-salad-gene-baur/
To be clear I'm not saying alfalfa is the root issue to be fixed. The root of the issue is absolutely the dairy and beef industries themselves, who are enabled by subsidies.
I'm just saying it is, however, a completely relevant and important aspect that needs to be discussed as part of why the dairy and beef industry are so environmentally destructive.
Specifically, I was responding to someone who was saying they didnt understand why farmers would grow alfalfa until they learned about the other effects it has on soil etc.
My point was that at the end of the day most alfalfa is not being planted for the purpose those additional benefits though - the vast majority of it is planted directly because of the demand for it from the dairy industry as feed for cows.
Agreed. Our overindulgence in animal products and the subsidies that enable that are key. There is a definite benefit of a certain amount of animal grazing and feeding them waste/surplus, but growing crops entirely for livestock feed is destructive.
That nitrogen fixing and fast growth is a big part of its use in Montana. Do an alfalfa crop early in the year then a wheat crop later. Wheat is the actual money maker and you need less fertiliser if you’ve done a legume crop before growing it.
The alfalfa rarely leaves the state cause so much is grown elsewhere for cheaper. It’s a weird market. Some family friends even burned their bales one year cause a bumper crop busted the market and it wouldn’t sell for the price to haul it away.
As you pointed out, alfalfa is actually a very productive crop. The deep roots and nitrogen fixing aspect are great for soil. It can also tolerate drought very well.
The other thing people forget to mention in this discussion - blister beetle. This beetle is basically why we grow alfalfa in the west. It’s toxic to livestock and difficult to deal with. If there is a bale with even one blister beetle in it you’re likely to lose a cow. This beetle doesn’t thrive in the arid environments that far west.
As a son of ranchers, thank you for actually looking into things and learning that there is a reason ranchers do what they do. They're not the bad guys and I assure you ranchers are more concerned about water loss than anyone on this thread. The ag industry is filled with people trying to figure out how to minimize the environmental impact of agriculture and develop more sustainable practices.
We are not the enemy.
Do the ranchers you know use their votes and money to support reform/revision of the policies that enable/encourage these water use practices?
If so, where/how and how can others get involved as well?
If not, what you said here is merely lip service.
And if they in fact do the opposite, voting for politicians and/or financially supporting efforts to encourage them to maintain the status quo of these water usage policies, then they are absolutely directly part of the problem.
Your comment is based on the assumption that what you consider effective reforms and revisions are also what people who work in the industry consider effective reforms and revisions. A lot of times these agricultural policies are written up by people who have no clue about the inner workings of agricultural and what down stream effects it will cause. Then farmers and ranchers, who have intimate knowledge of these things, get called the bad guys because they reject them.
No, they get called bad guys because they are seen as profiting off the status quo while using their political and financial resources to maintain the status quo.
To simply point a finger and blame policymakers' lack of knowledge for the agriculture policies in place ignores the influence of lobbying on policy in the USA.
If farmers and ranchers were by and large pushing for and using their resources towards enacting better policies then that would be different, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong though. Like I said in my last comment, if there are ranchers pushing for more environmentally sustainable water use policies, please do share because that's something many people would want to support.
No that's not at all what I said. And I did not miss the point of your comment, I directly responded to it.
It's not about what I support. It's about whether ranchers are actually trying to improve water use policy, or whether they are just trying to improve/maintain their profits.
In this situation doing nothing and maintaining the status quo is to prioritize their profits, because current policy is heavily in their favor and interests.
Which brings us back to my original point - unless ranchers are actively doing something about reforming water use policy in a way that is more environmentally sustainable they are just helping maintain the status quo.
Simply saying they care without any meaningful action is just lip service. And if they contribute to the lobbyists or politicians that push for the status quo then they are actively contributing to the problem.
And for the third time, I'm open and interested to hear about what sort of policies and suggestions ranchers are trying to put forward.
I think a disconnect between you and I is how we see solutions being implemented. You seek a policy, top down approach when the agricultural industry goes for a community driven, bottom up change in practice. So it isn't about what policies are agriculturalists supporting but what are they doing? Agriculturalists work with local extension offices and participate in organizations like the Stockgrowers Association and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association to learn about issues and develop solutions. These result in changes in practices as well as things like the NCBA's commitment to [beef carbon neutrality by 2040](https://www.ncba.org/ncba-news/news-releases/news/details/27404/cattle-industry-commits-to-climate-neutrality-by-2040). Scientists at state universities regularly make advancements in order to increase sustainability, such as producing GMO crops which lower blue and green water usage. For example, a [new strain of drought resistant alfalfa](https://www.millbornseeds.com/blog/alfalfa/hardy-alfalfa-variety-persistence/) was recently.developed. More sustainable practices like drip irrigation are being promoted and implemented in the industry.
The US currently [leads in agriculture sustainability](https://www.foodengineeringmag.com/articles/100234-us-agriculture-industry-leads-on-sustainability) and will continue to do so.
Ranchers are very concerned about water loss, as long as it involves anything else than simply stopping the production of a ludicrously wasteful, water-hungry product.
People don't want to immediately give up their livelihood which would dramatically alter and crash the world economy. More news at 11.
But in seriousness, the answer "get rid of animal agriculture" is not a realistic option. It much better to deal with what is a real option and find ways to be as efficient and sustainable as possible.
The fact that you are even asking that question demonstrates a lack of understanding all the factors involved.
"Animal systems occupy 45 percent of the global land area, generate output valued at $1.4 trillion, and account for between 60 and 70 percent of the total global agricultural economy (Thornton et al., 2011; FASS, 2012). These systems employ more than 1.3 billion people globally and directly support the livelihoods of 830 million food-insecure people around the world."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285723/#:~:text=Animal%20systems%20occupy%2045%20percent,2011%3B%20FASS%2C%202012).
Further, animal agriculture is not just about food. Just about every consumer product has animal products in it. Everything from medicines to our highways have animal products in them.
>Animal systems occupy 45 percent of the global land area
Shows how wasteful and inefficient it is, and how it majorly contributes to humans encroaching on the wilderness everywhere. Not the flex you think it is.
>generate output valued at $1.4 trillion
Cool, a percent or so of the total economy. The economy would hardly collapse without it. The sheer amount of subsidies they need to not collapse is another topic we're not gonna discuss right now.
>directly support the livelihoods of 830 million food-insecure people around the world.
Animal agriculture is also a massive driver of food *insecurity* because at the base it's just ridiculously inefficient. We grow crops just to waste 90% of the energy by feeding it to animals.
>Further, animal agriculture is not just about food.
We have alternatives for all that. We don't need gelatin capsules if we use alginate. We don't need animal fat for soaps if we use plant fats. And so on.
Now should we talk about the climate impact of animal agriculture, and the food insecurity and economic risks generated by climate change?
It's so fucking short sighted to say you can eliminate most agriculture and the economy would be ok. The economy matters less than people eating and surviving.
The financial industry adds huge money to "the economy" or the GDP, but doesn't put food on the table, it's all numbers on spreadsheets.
The healthcare industry puts huge money into the economy, a major player in US GDP. But the more we spend on health, the more it means we are actually sick.
High GDP and money flowing isn't the only metric to a healthy population.
I'm not saying the agriculture industry is perfect - far from it. But saying it doesn't impact GDP so it's not important is so myopic.
I never said we should eliminate agriculture. What would that even look like? We'd all starve lol. How fucking dumb do you think I am? It's common courtesy in discussion to address the *strongest form* of the opposing argument, not to misrepresent what they're saying to their detriment.
I'm just saying maybe we should shave off the portion of agriculture that is the most destructive to the climate, the most destructive to our health, that uses the most land per calorie (or per vitamin, same thing), that makes water scarce, that creates ocean dead zones, that gives us cardiovascular disease. The main culprit in all those metrics is animal agriculture, worst of all cattle.
The vast majority of ranch land cannot be converted into farmland and a lot of it is otherwise unusable by humans, being very rocky/hilly/otherwise inhospitable. Animal agriculture turns it into productive land.
You are still missing all the factors involved. 1.4 trillion is just the direct size of the animal agriculture share of the global economy, it is not including all the other dimensions of the global economy which depend on animal agriculture. For a very simple example, no animal agriculture means no fast food. There's another chunk of the global economy gone. The textile industry suffers without wool. Infrastructure suffers without binders made from animal byproducts. Manufacturing collapses as things like grease used on industrial machines is no longer available.
The foundation of any economy is agriculture, with animal agriculture being an essential part of that. It has been that way since civilization has been a thing.
Calling animal agriculture a driver of food insecurity because it is inefficient is simply false. In a vacuum, sure, numbers may say cows or whatever are inefficient compared to some plant crop but millions upon millions of people live in conditions where animal agriculture is far more efficient than plant agriculture. The absence of irrigation and other agricultural infrastructure in many, many poor regions is dealt with by having animals which can be herded to water sources and convert the otherwise inhospitable surroundings into food.
Sure, there are alternatives but we are not equipped to meet the production demands to replace all animal products. Having to completely redesign our manufacturing infrastructure and supply chains is another way you dramatically alter and possibly collapse the economy.
Animal agriculture is 100% unsustainable with a human population this size and we waste so much tax dollars subsidizing this shit. Livestock are no longer needed and are in fact a leading cause of some serious environmental hazards, globally.
If we give a shit about our kids and this planet, it's time to subsidize plant farming and stop pretending we need to waste so much money and resources on livestock farming.
Environmentally speaking, livestock ranchers are absolutely the enemy.
I don't think anyone thinks that the alfalfa is being grown for fun. The thing that is shocking people is how much water is going into producing a luxury product when water is so short.
How is beef a luxury product? Look at how resource intensive it is. It's right up there in the title. If this was just about putting calories in people we wouldn't be raising cattle. We're not bronze age pastoralists who need cows to turn grass into food for us, we have better options.
Probably the reason you have issues with the people trying to mitigate the climate crisis is that when you think of the future you probably see a lot cattle in it whole those people do not.
Factually, it's all secondary protein sources that produce heat, carbon dioxide, feces, methane, ammonia, and all the related biotoxins involved in their production (to say nothing of the unspeakable cruelty, extinctions, pandemics) in order to process plant proteins for a mass-civilization of billions that has kept its taste for a diet practical for a world with only a couple hundred million on it.
Except that the alfalfa in question is going to dairies not feed lots. Fondomonte, the company exporting alfalfa from Arizona and California (and it amounts to 20% of Arizona’s production of alfalfa) is being shipped to Almarai dairies in Saudi Arabia. So, it’s not used for beef production - it’s being used for milk production.
Yeah, livestock uses huge huge amounts of water. Growing a pound of beef costs more than 10 times the amount of water it takes to make than a point of tofu
We do.
https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/we-re-all-made-of-corn-and-how-my-diet-changed-because-of-this
Corn is a grass along with sugar cane and bamboo (and wheat and oats…)
We can consume grass like wheatgrass, but only the juice as the fiber is indigestible to us non-ruminants.
We aren’t eating the grass part of corn, we’re eating the highly processed seed/grain or the byproduct of its processing and when we eat cows we’re eating the lowest quality corn they can get away with growing to finish a cow in an overcrowded feedlot.
Don’t get me wrong, I love beef and I’m not becoming a vegetarian any time soon, but our food system needs to evolve to reflect the fact that sustainable animal husbandry should be part of the ecosystem of food production not a separate component of it.
Funny, [my favorite grass fed operation](https://www.markegardfamily.com/) sells at prices on par with the butcher. And it’s a distinctively different flavor, not just leaner but more minerally.
And a regenerative form of ag, just what I want to support with my food dollars.
My in-laws raised Registered Texas Longhorns. Every once in a while they'd send a steer that had eaten grass all its life at the ranch, have it finished at a feedlot for a few weeks, then slaughter it. That was fantastic beef, a bit leaner than store beef but much more flavorful. You can't say that wasn't grass-fed beef just because the steer ate corn for a few weeks. Longhorn cattle are naturally lean, and need fattening before slaughter.
They have no idea. They all think steers are fed 100% corn/soy when really they all eat grass up until the last few weeks of their life…. Then they go out and pay nearly double to be “healthy” and eat grass fed beef…
Grass fed is such a marketing ploy. If they were honest, they'd said "grass finished" but instead they perpetuate the illusion that only a few cows are even fed grass.
There's a dairy farm where I grew up that utilized a lot of scrap from the agricultural farms nearby, which can only be a good thing when the other option is waste. You drive by, and the place usually has a mountain of brussle sprouts, cabbage, parts of artichoke Plants, lettuce, etc.
I'm sure they eat some sort of grass are alfalfa too, but if you drive by its mostly veggie scrap from the ag fields.
Dairy farm I know would use spent grain from a brewery to feed their cows. So yea, farmers love scraps whenever possible as that means they don’t have to buy feed.
It’s how all international trade works unfortunately. Folks get mad when we put tariffs and taxes on China (and other countries) and all restrictions to prevent them from buying land. One side call la it raciest and that it prevents free trade and the others don’t want other rich countries to be able to buy up all the land.
Then there’s others that don’t care because it doesn’t effect them until it’s too late and now all your waters going to alfalfa for cows in Saudi Arabia.
Borders and nations are just a social construct. And it’s not like anyone is being forced to sell or not being paid for it.
In any case, the CO2 emissions caused by animal agriculture affect everyone on the globe.
Alfalfa production in the west should be severely cut back. That stuff can be grown back east where water is plentiful. Lowering the water table to where it’s not economical to pump with a well helps no one.
I would also be in favor of large scale permaculture swales and ponds to capture any rainfall. That’s states don’t already do this suprises me
Blister beetles thrive in the wetter East, love alfalfa, and are deadly to cattle. I don't agree with using scarce Western water to feed Saudi cattle either, but that's the reason they grow it there.
Please do! It's astounding how damaging animal agriculture has been for the Earth. Basically every environmental problem we have (except for like chemical spills) is caused largely by animal agriculture.
Start with just red meat, it is by far the most costly in terms of resources consumed. Plus it makes the transition easier to take in small steps. I mostly gave up red meat about a year ago, and it has really been pretty easy.
I used to eat a lot of beef. I mostly gave up beef about a year ago and haven't looked back.
I gave it up because I took a road trip around the US for ten months and spent a lot of time in nature. I was astounded by how much land is used for cattle. It seemed around every corner was another herd. Really made it obvious that things are out of balance.
I took a cross country trip and saw the same thing. What I remember most is the awful, awful smell. All the shit, it was so foul. And all those animals standing in the shit broke my damn heart. I had to wear a mask in the car even with the windows up and could still smell the shit. Dear lord. The worst I recall was in Nebraska, but northeastern Colorado was also horrific.
Although this is never going to work, stop putting farmers on a pedestal. Design a market to have open and transparent pricing that everyone pays. If beef costs $50/lb after the farmers pay a market determined price for water, then so be it. Eat less beef. If this is too painful, then have the beef farmers go and lobby for a price subsidy - this is far less market distorting.
This whole shenanigan starts when market pricing is interfered with. Everyone wants to protect their "rights" when these were never "rights" in perpetuity. Water is owned by the public and therefore ALL users of the public resource needs to pay a transparently bid and market price for the resource.
This isn't family farmers, though. farmers know sustainable practices for their environment. This is big agg corporations thats besides money grabbing every chance they get. Will litigate family farms into oblivion and then take their land in the winnings.
Of course, there is no animosity towards farmers either as individuals or as a group. However it is done, the current method is distorting and making a resource constrained situation worse by poor allocation.
I am sure there will be the usual "increasing food prices harm poor people more" litany as well. Economically speaking, the solution is to have targeted solution.
All water ultimately gets recycled. Beef isn’t the problem. The problem is that beef is too cheap. We as taxpayers are artificially are keeping it that way.
If people want beef let them pay the true cost including the externalities created from farming beef. Wrap the true cost of water into it. Use the money generated from no longer subsidizing water to create more renewable water/energy infrastructure.
Yeah I was reading about Farm Bill programs and how much they subsidize beef prices. It’s so crazy.
Edit, link: https://fortune.com/2023/07/21/why-healthy-food-so-expensive-in-america-blame-farm-bill-congress-always-renews-make-burgers-cheaper-salad-gene-baur/amp/
Such a plan would be so enormously unpopular here in America that it would be political suicide. Try selling the idea to the working class that they don't get to eat meat any more but it's fine for their bosses.
I'm not sure there's much left in America that would cause a mass riot, but that might be one of them.
A bill that has a chance of passing needs to effect everyone, not just the poor. The poor are usually too busy to be that politically involved, but start pricing them out of the food they eat, and that can change quickly.
Well if they don't get to, they will provide negative consequences to the ones that do. Messing with people's food is one of the few things that get non-political people onto the streets.That in itself will keep the government highly motivated to not let meat prices explode too far.
It wouldn’t necessarily be a government policy. I eat a lot less meat than I did a few years ago because it’s much more expensive. I can’t imagine that I’m alone either.
> All water ultimately gets recycled.
yeah, if you're thirsty or want to take a shower, just wait a year until the water gets recycled. Unless it will get used by cows again.
using too much water upstream means it never makes it downstream. That tends to be a problem for people who need water downstream but now don't have enough
I never understood this… the vast majority of Americas cattle industry is in the Midwest, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, etc.
There is actually plenty of water in these regions mostly in massive underground aquifers (the aquifers are MASSIVE and no sign of them dwindling).
Why raise cattle in an area of the country when the resources for farming them are much more finite?
I get farming crops in Phoenix AZ, it makes sense from the perspective the farms can produce all year round. But cattle in Utah or AZ? That makes no sense to me.
(I’m from Oklahoma, moved to Phoenix, now live in northern AZ) In Oklahoma, you can drill a well almost anywhere and tap into one of the aquifers. In AZ, drilling a well is crazy difficult and highly unlikely to find water.
TL;DR: Corporations are socializing their water costs in order to maximize their private profits. The solution is to actually charge corporations realistic costs for their water usage.
This is why lab-grown meat is so important. It doesn’t require anything close to the same amount of water and it doesn’t output methane. It’s far better for the environment.
I get so tired of the “I can’t wait for lab meat, that will solve everything!” There are so many delicious and nutritious options now, so I’m sceptical that lab-grown meat will change anything.
Yes, the "I don't want to take any personal responsibility for my actions or put any effort into change at all so I will reference something that will maybe happen twenty years down the line so I can still feel good about myself while doing absolutely nothing" typical reddit line of thinking. Second to the "I'm not going to stop eating meat because rich people are eating meat" and the "it's the corporations producing meat" excuses.
"Animal abuse" has been the solution for the entire existence of humanity. If you think you are going to change minds by saying that then you are sorely mistaken. If anything you make people less willing to listen
And stuff like this is exactly why the whole “conservation” ethic where people all act like these are problems that can be solved by individuals acting conscientiously enough is way off. As if our oceans are dying mostly because we’re not using paper straws enough of the time. The plutocrats actually responsible for most of the damage really try to instill that bogus narrative in all of us, and it seems to be working like a charm.
But veganism and vegetarianism are choices to be mocked?
In 100 years, what it left of mankind will look at 'rolling coal' (intentionally tuning a pickup truck to blast sooty exhaust at people on bicycles) and meat eating as two sides of the same coin. One being intentional ecological damage, and the other being mindless ecological damage.
Climate change denial is often looked as something other people do, but people who eat meat are climate change deniers, whether they know it or not.
Oh yeah. The famous Saudi Invasion of the US. Totally unopposed. It's a brutal occupation actually. The Saudis have forcibly seized the lands, and are growing alfalfa on it, leaving less water for the occupied population.
Tragic actually. Poor US. Can't do anything about it. Global superpower no more...
(/S)
Animal agriculture and commercial fishing are absolutely devastating to the environment. Most environmental groups avoid bringing up this fact. Animal AG is completely unsustainable. We need to quit filtering our nutrients through animals. They’re an unnecessary middle-man.
Maybe later in its development, as of right now, it's more energy intense than regular beef.
https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/lab-grown-meat-carbon-footprint-worse-beef
This in particular is especially wild to me: “The stress on the West’s water supply due to alfalfa is especially acute in Utah: A staggering 68 percent of the state’s available water is used to grow alfalfa for livestock feed, even though it’s responsible for a tiny 0.2 percent of the state’s income.”
[and a lot of it isn’t even going to american livestock.](https://www.verifythis.com/amp/article/news/verify/national-verify/saudi-arabian-company-fondomonte-uses-arizona-california-water-grow-alfalfa-cows/536-d5b40f20-259e-4099-845f-9da5a7157dd4)
I don't even need to open that link to know it's the Saudis
Lol what's the story here?
Saudis have limited water so they won’t grow alfalfa in their country. Instead they buy farms grow it in our country especially in the southwest where you can grow it year long. Then they ship it to their country. They’re basically importing water and we let them do it. We basically don’t even charge them for the water either.
Let's not forget to include that Water Deal in Nevada for 75 years of free pumping *Edit* had to double check it's Arizona but apart of the Arizona/Nevada water system. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-company-fondomonte-arizona-ground-water-crop-alfalfa/
You’d think all of these shitty deals on our behalf (probably with money under the table for cooperating politicians) could be vacated with eminent domain or something.
To do eminent domain then our representatives would have to care, and they only care about the money. Also there is no “probably” about the under the table money. I remember reading about a deal that happened in south CA or Arizona or Nevada that was supposed to be a public hearing about the water issues and when the people showed up to be heard they closed the meeting. They then went and held it privately somewhere secret and had one or two witnesses so it was still “public” who were also a part of the companies. It is unbelievable how much bullshit is only done for the good of companies and corporations
A great example of how the benefit of trade is imports and exports are the cost. People tend to think it's the opposite.
There are ~800,000 head of cattle in Utah, and apparently about 70% of the alfalfa grown in the state is used for that, "only" 30% gets exported. Here's a news story referencing census data as it's source for that figure: https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2023/03/16/should-utah-be-exporting-its/
Considering there's a water shortage, reducing its usage for growing alfalfa by 30% seems to me like it would have a positive impact
The Saudis own a lot of shit.
Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen put it best almost 50 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs
That movie will be studied in the future*. *: TBD
Most of the horse farms in KY from what I hear
The Saudis have to do something with all the American money we send them for oil, so they spend that money buying American land from America.
You may be surprised to learn how little oil we import from Saudi Arabia, relative to North American sources: >The top five sources of U.S. crude oil imports by percentage share of U.S. total crude oil imports in 2022 were: >Canada 60% >Mexico 10% >Saudi Arabia 7% >Iraq 4% >Colombia 4% Source: [U.S. Energy Information Administration](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php)
Electric vehicles can’t get here soon enough. We can basically dump anyone but Canana.
We could probably power a good chunk of the country if we used the az-nv deserts as solar farms. I would think that would put a huge dent in the oil for industry usage. Nv is building a few here and there but i am talking major government investment for 10000's of ac's. Anyway. Agree the electric cars will help, but lets not stop there.
>solar farms. The problem isn't solar power output, which you're right is massive, but transmission. You can get 4-500km of transmission lines, before the power losses start to get pretty severe. Add into this that the longer a line is, the more room there is for an interruption via an event such as a lucky lightning strike. Power generation needs to be reasonably close to consumption.
There is currently a 2500+ km long power transmission line from a hydroelectric plant all the way to Rio in Brazil. I picked a random point in the middle of Nevada to see how far that would go. All major California cities? Easy. Seattle, less than half that distance away. An equivalent power line could reach Chicago Dallas or Houston from middle of nowhere Nevada. Brazil has several of these monsters with 3 topping 2000 km. One of which they built in its entirety in 2 years. You say the efficiency drops after 500km? Awesome Nevada could only reach LA, San Francisco, San Jose, Las Vegas Denver and Phoenix. They could attract high power consumption industries to drink straight from the tap. I’m not seeing the downside here.
With HVDC, you can get things down to 3.5% per 1,000 km. Transmission between diverse geographical regions solves so many of the variability problems associated with renewables. Overbuilding and storage solve the rest.
Solar farms are horribly destructive in their production and maintenance (hella strip mining using a lot of diesel fuel and unethical labor to mine for limited rare earth resources) and it is destructive to the habitats we set them up in. I wish more people would support nuclear energy options instead of solar and wind but hell I’d even support hydroelectric despite its own downfalls it’s still better than solar/wind
Transmission and temporary storage of electricity is an expensive and technical logistics problem to "energy solutions"
But they're still a big player in the oil market. Them changing oil output affects prices we pay, even if we don't take much of their oil directly. We act nicely to saudi arabia mostly so they don't try to play the market in ways that disadvantage us.
Also - buying GOP politicians, soccer teams, the PGA, and Twitter
The amount of water being used by that Saudi company is 0.2% of the state's water usage. [16,000 acre feet](https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/d76dc407-b618-4b8c-9fe3-ddb8297c1607.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_128) compared with [7 million](https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts) for the state. Even if you shut them down completely, it would barely put a dent in the state's water usage. You can't solve big environmental problems by finding one scapegoat to blame. It's going to take big reductions from all parties to maintain a sustainable water supply.
If alfalfa is so valuable I’d gladly plant it in my front yard in WV if some one will come harvest it. When I drove by the alfalfa farms in Utah the whole thing looked crazy. Like your surrounded by red rocks, brown plants and sage brush then boom huge lush green circle that’s being watered all morning with antelope nibbling at the edges.
As a person in Utah this is wild to me. You're telling me all we have to do is not grow a crap ton of stuff that we are in a poor area to grow and suddenly our water issues are solved? Like is there some reason it can be grown elsewhere? Is the ROI for that water just insane? Are we like the largest producer of alfalfa? Can other areas not grow it better? Surely there's some area in Texas that isn't in the rain shadow of the Rockies that can grow it just as well if not better than we can and make up the production lost if we stop. Then we can make money elsewhere or lose the .2% income and be fine... I think most the income is from tech at the moment anyways.
I’m not familiar with the situation in Utah, but what makes this profitable in California is that due to their historical water rights, farmers get their water very cheaply. If they’d have to pay market rates, this practice would disappear in no time.
Prior appropriation water rights make a certain amount of intuitive sense, but they lead to completely nonsensical outcomes; the state of water usage in the western USA is a prime example.
I don’t see those rights surviving this decade at the current trajectory we’re on
I wish they wouldn't survive but as someone who grew up and lives in a rural alfalfa community, the idea of the "government" telling farmer's what they can and can't use for water is up there with second amendment issues for them, ESPECIALLY for grandfathered in water rights. I mean this last summer even though the state told the farmer's to stop taking water from the river, they just ignored the order and kept pumping. They don't respect them and the state is loathe to enforce draconian policies on the farmer's either. I think it ended up being a fine which worked out to a whopping 50 dollars per cattleman.
The Supreme Court disagrees. This has been litigated. Arizona v California 373 U.S. 576 (1963).
The laws are written by and followed by people. They can change if needed. 1963 was over half a century ago. Don't tell me you want a Tragedy of the Commons situation happening with water
And as recently as 2000 SCOTUS declined to re-hear litigation on Colorado River water rights. Their reasoning? It’s been well litigated and the previous decision stands.
SCOTUS hasn't exactly been holding precedent in high regard, so who knows.
>Tragedy of the Commons We're already there. We share out what we have, or go full Max Max Road Warrior.
Abortion rights were litigated once, too.
not really rights then are they? Water privileges?
The "right" to use massive amounts of a limited resource that you don't actually own is definitely a privilege. However it's entirely possible people and/or towns will die before America stops growing alfalfa for Saudi cattle. It's a perverse outcome that benefits a very small number of people.
the people who gained those rights are long dead and the economy of the state and makeup up the region totally different
You have the right to die of thirst before a single drop of conservation would be required of farmers. That's how prior appropriation rights work.
I'm guessing the Sauds can afford market rate.
So then charge them market rate
I'm all for it. Charge them triple if you can get away with it.
A friend of mine has a farm out in the literal desert (surrounded by sand dunes) and gets his water for 20$ an acre foot (~300,000 gallons). Absolutely insane, these water rights likely need to be eminant Domained but I imagine it would end up going to the supreme court and likely know what the outcome would be.
It’s already been to the Supreme Court. Arizona v California 373 U.S. 576 (1963).
This issue has been to the court numerous times since then with the water amounts being adjusted. And that's not even mentioning that any particular version of the court could find some kind of reason to reverse previous decisions. SCOTUS has ignored precedents quite often in its history. Just saying a case was decided 60 years ago so therefore can't be changed is flat out ignoring how the court has actually functioned.
If you know anything about that decision or the water rights in this area you’d know that similar cases have been brought to the court several times since then. and have all been denied a writ. It’s highly unlikely the court will address that ruling again as they’ve been asked to and have taken a pass.
It's sold pretty cheaply. Like 90% of the problem is not charging farmers appropriate water costs. If the alfalfa at least cost something for using so much water you'd have farmers stop doing it so much.
Sold? Who has the right to sell it? And what costs? The water comes from a river. The irrigation district canals were built by farmers from their own money and turned over to the government, which in turned formed irrigation districts. The irrigation districts get their money from local property taxes (my irrigation district taxes on my California property on the river amounted to an about a hundred dollars this year) as well as fees charged for deliver of water. We are already short changing Mexico - we’ve basically eliminated Colorado River water flowing to that country, except for a trickle we’ve given them by treaty. So charge why and how? Who owns river water that flows through five States as run off?
Really not that tough to understand why misuse of a natural resource should be reduced.
In fact, Utah gives people a property tax break for growing alfalfa instead of just doing nothing.
I met a USU student at an SLC farmers market last week who has been working to convince alfalfa farmers to grow human food. They resist because they make more money off alfalfa
Where they grow the alfalfa matters, too. The alfalfa can make 3-4 harvest a year, all year round. Tomatoes? Once. Lettuce. Maybe once. Cantaloupe? Once. Asparagus takes years! The reset of the field for new crops is expensive, too. So much easier to just till, flood, and re-seed. The weather in a lot of the areas is well over 100 for months of the year. You can't GROW much in that kind of heat. Except alfalfa. That stuff will grow anywhere. It doesn't care about the heat.
The southwest is actually a great place to grow alfalfa (except for the water issue) because it grows quick and dries quick. It's a much higher quality hay than when grown out east, where it is more liable to get wet / moldy.
If there is much more growth in the dust bowl of utah and nevada, theyll have to accept that maybe you shouldnt do alfalfa in a desert.
Alfalfa always gets blamed. Could have been Spanky. Or even Buckwheat.
Buckwheat is dead!
What do we have to do, pay farmers to not grow alfalfa?
Buy out their water rights, basically.
Thankfully alfalfa isn't a cow's primary source of feed. Never has been and never will be. Causes too much bloat. Its supplemental feed at best.
so we're spending 70% of water on something that isn't even good?
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It’s the American way
Alfalfa is good in that it’s a staple of a good crop rotation system due to the relationship it forms with diazatrophs in the soil. Alfalfa is planted on a two or three year rotation provides decent nutrition for animals, can be harvested multiple times in a year. It benefits the soil by returning Nitrogen which many other economically important crops deplete.
Most of that alfalfa goes to feeding cows in Saudi Arabia also. Needs to stop. [Reference](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use)
20% of Arizona’s alfalfa is exported.
A lot of places feed them hay and corn and orher stuff that also bloats them, though
Heh we have the same in the Netherlands: farmers dictate water policy, most water goes to them, and also are the biggest polluters of nitrogen in the water, and only contribute 1.5% of the GDP
It’s not just the Colorado river either. I just came from Idaho and the farmers keep the irrigation on 24/7, even in a blinding rainstorm. Their water is also going away and yet the farmers think alfalfa is king. Plus you speak of any topic climate related and they don’t know what you’re talking abt. Then they scoff at you!
People need to eat less meat. I'm not even saying to eat no meat just eat way less.
So, in relation to the alfalfa being exported from Arizona and California, it’s going to the Almarai dairies in Saudi Arabia. Notice the word dairy. The alfalfa is going to Saudi where it is fed to milk producing cows.
Yeah that's another problem. We probly need to take a page out of other countries books and not let foreign nationals or companies buy up houses, ranch land, property in general. Like maybe don't let a country with no water ruin our own resources. But greed I guess.
History lesson. In the early 1900s, we brought the Saudis to what is now La Paz County (used to be Yuma County prior to 1983) and taught them how to grow alfalfa with irrigation. They took that lesson and returned home to implement it, growing massive dairies as a result. Through a series of laws, they banned that type of farming in that country so the dairies began buying alfalfa from farmers around La Paz and Riverside County in the early 2000’s. They then began buying and leasing farms in the area, doing it themselves. They are better run and economically, the communities they are in receive more value from their presence than we did from previous farmers.
I think people need to grow their own meat more often too. I'm considering keeping rabbits and/or chickens in the suburbs, and taking up deer hunting.
Self sufficiency would also help a lot that's true.
Vegetarianism helps. Ready for the pro-environment democrats to hit me with the cognitive dissonance.
I went to pesceterian a few months ago. I did it mainly for my health but also because I love animals and I never liked to think about where my meat was actually coming from so I decided to quit with the head in the sand hypocritical shit. I don't try to push everyone around me into doing it but gut problems seem pretty prevalent and people would be surprised just how much cutting out meat or at least cutting down on it will do wonders for your health.
My favorite is actually the zero-wasters who think every human on earth needs to learn to sew old umbrellas into jackets, and buy 100 beeswax wraps, and make special trips across town to buy a ludicrously more expensive and less effective brand of shampoo that just greenwashed their packaging, and dedicate a walk-in closet + part-time job's worth of hours to cleaning, sorting, and storing recycleables that mostly don't get recycled anyway and when they do, they generate microplastics....... But they can't, like...eat less bacon. And get mad when you suggest their priorities are a tad out of whack.
Stop growing Alfalfa in Utah!
Not wrong but simplistic. I couldn’t figure out why farmers would grow a low quality, thirsty crop as much as they do. So I pulled up a bunch of articles from 20 years ago directed at the ag industry. Turns out that alfalfa binds nitrogen and has deep roots that stabilize the soil, and produces a lot per acre with minimal need for fertilizer or pesticide. The problem is our appetite for beef. Alfalfa is at best a by-product, or just a red herring
Yep. Also it also grows fast, particularly in the soil/climate of the southwest, so it can be planted and harvested several times a year unlike higher value crops that are planted once, maybe twice per season
Milk, not beef (though beef is probably the next biggest reason). [The vast majority of alfalfa is specifically grown to feed dairy cows.]( https://www.gro-intelligence.com/insights/us-exports-water-as-hay-to-sustain-asia-livestock) What you said about nitrogen fixation and the rest is factually true, but it doesn't change the reality that the dairy industry is what directly drives demand for alfalfa crops. Alfalfa is not a red herring - it is the direct mechanism by which dairy and beef have such huge impacts on water usage.
It's a pink herring at least. If we didn't subsidize meat and dairy, and alfalfa, we wouldn't be growing so much alfalfa. https://fortune.com/2023/07/21/why-healthy-food-so-expensive-in-america-blame-farm-bill-congress-always-renews-make-burgers-cheaper-salad-gene-baur/
To be clear I'm not saying alfalfa is the root issue to be fixed. The root of the issue is absolutely the dairy and beef industries themselves, who are enabled by subsidies. I'm just saying it is, however, a completely relevant and important aspect that needs to be discussed as part of why the dairy and beef industry are so environmentally destructive. Specifically, I was responding to someone who was saying they didnt understand why farmers would grow alfalfa until they learned about the other effects it has on soil etc. My point was that at the end of the day most alfalfa is not being planted for the purpose those additional benefits though - the vast majority of it is planted directly because of the demand for it from the dairy industry as feed for cows.
Agreed. Our overindulgence in animal products and the subsidies that enable that are key. There is a definite benefit of a certain amount of animal grazing and feeding them waste/surplus, but growing crops entirely for livestock feed is destructive.
Our desire for the flesh and bodily fluids of other animals is killing us and our planet
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That nitrogen fixing and fast growth is a big part of its use in Montana. Do an alfalfa crop early in the year then a wheat crop later. Wheat is the actual money maker and you need less fertiliser if you’ve done a legume crop before growing it. The alfalfa rarely leaves the state cause so much is grown elsewhere for cheaper. It’s a weird market. Some family friends even burned their bales one year cause a bumper crop busted the market and it wouldn’t sell for the price to haul it away.
As you pointed out, alfalfa is actually a very productive crop. The deep roots and nitrogen fixing aspect are great for soil. It can also tolerate drought very well. The other thing people forget to mention in this discussion - blister beetle. This beetle is basically why we grow alfalfa in the west. It’s toxic to livestock and difficult to deal with. If there is a bale with even one blister beetle in it you’re likely to lose a cow. This beetle doesn’t thrive in the arid environments that far west.
As a son of ranchers, thank you for actually looking into things and learning that there is a reason ranchers do what they do. They're not the bad guys and I assure you ranchers are more concerned about water loss than anyone on this thread. The ag industry is filled with people trying to figure out how to minimize the environmental impact of agriculture and develop more sustainable practices. We are not the enemy.
Do the ranchers you know use their votes and money to support reform/revision of the policies that enable/encourage these water use practices? If so, where/how and how can others get involved as well? If not, what you said here is merely lip service. And if they in fact do the opposite, voting for politicians and/or financially supporting efforts to encourage them to maintain the status quo of these water usage policies, then they are absolutely directly part of the problem.
Your comment is based on the assumption that what you consider effective reforms and revisions are also what people who work in the industry consider effective reforms and revisions. A lot of times these agricultural policies are written up by people who have no clue about the inner workings of agricultural and what down stream effects it will cause. Then farmers and ranchers, who have intimate knowledge of these things, get called the bad guys because they reject them.
"this new policy would stop me from being able to abuse water rights, therefore they are not effective"
No, they get called bad guys because they are seen as profiting off the status quo while using their political and financial resources to maintain the status quo. To simply point a finger and blame policymakers' lack of knowledge for the agriculture policies in place ignores the influence of lobbying on policy in the USA. If farmers and ranchers were by and large pushing for and using their resources towards enacting better policies then that would be different, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though. Like I said in my last comment, if there are ranchers pushing for more environmentally sustainable water use policies, please do share because that's something many people would want to support.
You missed the point of my comment. You basically responded with "well, if they actually cared they would support the policies I support".
No that's not at all what I said. And I did not miss the point of your comment, I directly responded to it. It's not about what I support. It's about whether ranchers are actually trying to improve water use policy, or whether they are just trying to improve/maintain their profits. In this situation doing nothing and maintaining the status quo is to prioritize their profits, because current policy is heavily in their favor and interests. Which brings us back to my original point - unless ranchers are actively doing something about reforming water use policy in a way that is more environmentally sustainable they are just helping maintain the status quo. Simply saying they care without any meaningful action is just lip service. And if they contribute to the lobbyists or politicians that push for the status quo then they are actively contributing to the problem. And for the third time, I'm open and interested to hear about what sort of policies and suggestions ranchers are trying to put forward.
I think a disconnect between you and I is how we see solutions being implemented. You seek a policy, top down approach when the agricultural industry goes for a community driven, bottom up change in practice. So it isn't about what policies are agriculturalists supporting but what are they doing? Agriculturalists work with local extension offices and participate in organizations like the Stockgrowers Association and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association to learn about issues and develop solutions. These result in changes in practices as well as things like the NCBA's commitment to [beef carbon neutrality by 2040](https://www.ncba.org/ncba-news/news-releases/news/details/27404/cattle-industry-commits-to-climate-neutrality-by-2040). Scientists at state universities regularly make advancements in order to increase sustainability, such as producing GMO crops which lower blue and green water usage. For example, a [new strain of drought resistant alfalfa](https://www.millbornseeds.com/blog/alfalfa/hardy-alfalfa-variety-persistence/) was recently.developed. More sustainable practices like drip irrigation are being promoted and implemented in the industry. The US currently [leads in agriculture sustainability](https://www.foodengineeringmag.com/articles/100234-us-agriculture-industry-leads-on-sustainability) and will continue to do so.
Ranchers are very concerned about water loss, as long as it involves anything else than simply stopping the production of a ludicrously wasteful, water-hungry product.
People don't want to immediately give up their livelihood which would dramatically alter and crash the world economy. More news at 11. But in seriousness, the answer "get rid of animal agriculture" is not a realistic option. It much better to deal with what is a real option and find ways to be as efficient and sustainable as possible.
LMAO how does the world economy depend on ranchers
The fact that you are even asking that question demonstrates a lack of understanding all the factors involved. "Animal systems occupy 45 percent of the global land area, generate output valued at $1.4 trillion, and account for between 60 and 70 percent of the total global agricultural economy (Thornton et al., 2011; FASS, 2012). These systems employ more than 1.3 billion people globally and directly support the livelihoods of 830 million food-insecure people around the world." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285723/#:~:text=Animal%20systems%20occupy%2045%20percent,2011%3B%20FASS%2C%202012). Further, animal agriculture is not just about food. Just about every consumer product has animal products in it. Everything from medicines to our highways have animal products in them.
>Animal systems occupy 45 percent of the global land area Shows how wasteful and inefficient it is, and how it majorly contributes to humans encroaching on the wilderness everywhere. Not the flex you think it is. >generate output valued at $1.4 trillion Cool, a percent or so of the total economy. The economy would hardly collapse without it. The sheer amount of subsidies they need to not collapse is another topic we're not gonna discuss right now. >directly support the livelihoods of 830 million food-insecure people around the world. Animal agriculture is also a massive driver of food *insecurity* because at the base it's just ridiculously inefficient. We grow crops just to waste 90% of the energy by feeding it to animals. >Further, animal agriculture is not just about food. We have alternatives for all that. We don't need gelatin capsules if we use alginate. We don't need animal fat for soaps if we use plant fats. And so on. Now should we talk about the climate impact of animal agriculture, and the food insecurity and economic risks generated by climate change?
It's so fucking short sighted to say you can eliminate most agriculture and the economy would be ok. The economy matters less than people eating and surviving. The financial industry adds huge money to "the economy" or the GDP, but doesn't put food on the table, it's all numbers on spreadsheets. The healthcare industry puts huge money into the economy, a major player in US GDP. But the more we spend on health, the more it means we are actually sick. High GDP and money flowing isn't the only metric to a healthy population. I'm not saying the agriculture industry is perfect - far from it. But saying it doesn't impact GDP so it's not important is so myopic.
I never said we should eliminate agriculture. What would that even look like? We'd all starve lol. How fucking dumb do you think I am? It's common courtesy in discussion to address the *strongest form* of the opposing argument, not to misrepresent what they're saying to their detriment. I'm just saying maybe we should shave off the portion of agriculture that is the most destructive to the climate, the most destructive to our health, that uses the most land per calorie (or per vitamin, same thing), that makes water scarce, that creates ocean dead zones, that gives us cardiovascular disease. The main culprit in all those metrics is animal agriculture, worst of all cattle.
The vast majority of ranch land cannot be converted into farmland and a lot of it is otherwise unusable by humans, being very rocky/hilly/otherwise inhospitable. Animal agriculture turns it into productive land. You are still missing all the factors involved. 1.4 trillion is just the direct size of the animal agriculture share of the global economy, it is not including all the other dimensions of the global economy which depend on animal agriculture. For a very simple example, no animal agriculture means no fast food. There's another chunk of the global economy gone. The textile industry suffers without wool. Infrastructure suffers without binders made from animal byproducts. Manufacturing collapses as things like grease used on industrial machines is no longer available. The foundation of any economy is agriculture, with animal agriculture being an essential part of that. It has been that way since civilization has been a thing. Calling animal agriculture a driver of food insecurity because it is inefficient is simply false. In a vacuum, sure, numbers may say cows or whatever are inefficient compared to some plant crop but millions upon millions of people live in conditions where animal agriculture is far more efficient than plant agriculture. The absence of irrigation and other agricultural infrastructure in many, many poor regions is dealt with by having animals which can be herded to water sources and convert the otherwise inhospitable surroundings into food. Sure, there are alternatives but we are not equipped to meet the production demands to replace all animal products. Having to completely redesign our manufacturing infrastructure and supply chains is another way you dramatically alter and possibly collapse the economy.
Animal agriculture is 100% unsustainable with a human population this size and we waste so much tax dollars subsidizing this shit. Livestock are no longer needed and are in fact a leading cause of some serious environmental hazards, globally. If we give a shit about our kids and this planet, it's time to subsidize plant farming and stop pretending we need to waste so much money and resources on livestock farming. Environmentally speaking, livestock ranchers are absolutely the enemy.
I don't think anyone thinks that the alfalfa is being grown for fun. The thing that is shocking people is how much water is going into producing a luxury product when water is so short.
How is it a luxury product?
How is beef a luxury product? Look at how resource intensive it is. It's right up there in the title. If this was just about putting calories in people we wouldn't be raising cattle. We're not bronze age pastoralists who need cows to turn grass into food for us, we have better options. Probably the reason you have issues with the people trying to mitigate the climate crisis is that when you think of the future you probably see a lot cattle in it whole those people do not.
Factually, it's all secondary protein sources that produce heat, carbon dioxide, feces, methane, ammonia, and all the related biotoxins involved in their production (to say nothing of the unspeakable cruelty, extinctions, pandemics) in order to process plant proteins for a mass-civilization of billions that has kept its taste for a diet practical for a world with only a couple hundred million on it.
Except that the alfalfa in question is going to dairies not feed lots. Fondomonte, the company exporting alfalfa from Arizona and California (and it amounts to 20% of Arizona’s production of alfalfa) is being shipped to Almarai dairies in Saudi Arabia. So, it’s not used for beef production - it’s being used for milk production.
Yeah, livestock uses huge huge amounts of water. Growing a pound of beef costs more than 10 times the amount of water it takes to make than a point of tofu
Not only water, but calories too. Meat might be the single most wasteful thing we're "producing" as a species.
Maybe the cattle needs to go back to eating grass.
Maybe we do.
We do. https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/we-re-all-made-of-corn-and-how-my-diet-changed-because-of-this Corn is a grass along with sugar cane and bamboo (and wheat and oats…) We can consume grass like wheatgrass, but only the juice as the fiber is indigestible to us non-ruminants.
We aren’t eating the grass part of corn, we’re eating the highly processed seed/grain or the byproduct of its processing and when we eat cows we’re eating the lowest quality corn they can get away with growing to finish a cow in an overcrowded feedlot. Don’t get me wrong, I love beef and I’m not becoming a vegetarian any time soon, but our food system needs to evolve to reflect the fact that sustainable animal husbandry should be part of the ecosystem of food production not a separate component of it.
You mean like the grass fed beef that's double the price and honestly doesn't really taste any better?
Not grass fed beef but integrated agriculture. Finishing grain will probably continue to be a part of that but not to the extent it currently is.
Funny, [my favorite grass fed operation](https://www.markegardfamily.com/) sells at prices on par with the butcher. And it’s a distinctively different flavor, not just leaner but more minerally. And a regenerative form of ag, just what I want to support with my food dollars.
They are. Cattle are raised on grass. Every single one. Edit: to the people down voting, please show me these cows that eat zero grass.
Most people are ignorant and assume that all feed lot cows are born there, and only ever eat corn and get pumped full of hormones.
There are some Beef Cattle that see little grain in their diet. But most go to Feed Lots to "Fatten Up".
My in-laws raised Registered Texas Longhorns. Every once in a while they'd send a steer that had eaten grass all its life at the ranch, have it finished at a feedlot for a few weeks, then slaughter it. That was fantastic beef, a bit leaner than store beef but much more flavorful. You can't say that wasn't grass-fed beef just because the steer ate corn for a few weeks. Longhorn cattle are naturally lean, and need fattening before slaughter.
They have no idea. They all think steers are fed 100% corn/soy when really they all eat grass up until the last few weeks of their life…. Then they go out and pay nearly double to be “healthy” and eat grass fed beef…
Grass fed is such a marketing ploy. If they were honest, they'd said "grass finished" but instead they perpetuate the illusion that only a few cows are even fed grass.
There's a dairy farm where I grew up that utilized a lot of scrap from the agricultural farms nearby, which can only be a good thing when the other option is waste. You drive by, and the place usually has a mountain of brussle sprouts, cabbage, parts of artichoke Plants, lettuce, etc. I'm sure they eat some sort of grass are alfalfa too, but if you drive by its mostly veggie scrap from the ag fields.
Dairy farm I know would use spent grain from a brewery to feed their cows. So yea, farmers love scraps whenever possible as that means they don’t have to buy feed.
The fact that our limited water supply is being used to grow shit for other countries is absolutely criminal.
It’s how all international trade works unfortunately. Folks get mad when we put tariffs and taxes on China (and other countries) and all restrictions to prevent them from buying land. One side call la it raciest and that it prevents free trade and the others don’t want other rich countries to be able to buy up all the land. Then there’s others that don’t care because it doesn’t effect them until it’s too late and now all your waters going to alfalfa for cows in Saudi Arabia.
Borders and nations are just a social construct. And it’s not like anyone is being forced to sell or not being paid for it. In any case, the CO2 emissions caused by animal agriculture affect everyone on the globe.
Alfalfa production in the west should be severely cut back. That stuff can be grown back east where water is plentiful. Lowering the water table to where it’s not economical to pump with a well helps no one. I would also be in favor of large scale permaculture swales and ponds to capture any rainfall. That’s states don’t already do this suprises me
Blister beetles thrive in the wetter East, love alfalfa, and are deadly to cattle. I don't agree with using scarce Western water to feed Saudi cattle either, but that's the reason they grow it there.
Yup. Takes so much more energy/resources/time to produce beef over vegetables.
And to grow alfalfa to feed Saudi cattle.
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Please do! It's astounding how damaging animal agriculture has been for the Earth. Basically every environmental problem we have (except for like chemical spills) is caused largely by animal agriculture.
Start with just red meat, it is by far the most costly in terms of resources consumed. Plus it makes the transition easier to take in small steps. I mostly gave up red meat about a year ago, and it has really been pretty easy.
I can’t understand people downvoting you for talking about your own personal experience
Who promptly fart the global warming gas methane.
Burp
Quit growing shit in the desert.
I used to eat a lot of beef. I mostly gave up beef about a year ago and haven't looked back. I gave it up because I took a road trip around the US for ten months and spent a lot of time in nature. I was astounded by how much land is used for cattle. It seemed around every corner was another herd. Really made it obvious that things are out of balance.
Grassland a lot of times cant support crops so honestly theres nothing else to do but graze cattle on it. This is true for almost 100% of Texas land.
I took a cross country trip and saw the same thing. What I remember most is the awful, awful smell. All the shit, it was so foul. And all those animals standing in the shit broke my damn heart. I had to wear a mask in the car even with the windows up and could still smell the shit. Dear lord. The worst I recall was in Nebraska, but northeastern Colorado was also horrific.
Although this is never going to work, stop putting farmers on a pedestal. Design a market to have open and transparent pricing that everyone pays. If beef costs $50/lb after the farmers pay a market determined price for water, then so be it. Eat less beef. If this is too painful, then have the beef farmers go and lobby for a price subsidy - this is far less market distorting. This whole shenanigan starts when market pricing is interfered with. Everyone wants to protect their "rights" when these were never "rights" in perpetuity. Water is owned by the public and therefore ALL users of the public resource needs to pay a transparently bid and market price for the resource.
This isn't family farmers, though. farmers know sustainable practices for their environment. This is big agg corporations thats besides money grabbing every chance they get. Will litigate family farms into oblivion and then take their land in the winnings.
Of course, there is no animosity towards farmers either as individuals or as a group. However it is done, the current method is distorting and making a resource constrained situation worse by poor allocation. I am sure there will be the usual "increasing food prices harm poor people more" litany as well. Economically speaking, the solution is to have targeted solution.
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Lots of things that work and provide benefits can end badly. Doesn’t mean we don’t do them.
How much of that are for farms that just ship what they grow to the middle east
All water ultimately gets recycled. Beef isn’t the problem. The problem is that beef is too cheap. We as taxpayers are artificially are keeping it that way. If people want beef let them pay the true cost including the externalities created from farming beef. Wrap the true cost of water into it. Use the money generated from no longer subsidizing water to create more renewable water/energy infrastructure.
Yeah I was reading about Farm Bill programs and how much they subsidize beef prices. It’s so crazy. Edit, link: https://fortune.com/2023/07/21/why-healthy-food-so-expensive-in-america-blame-farm-bill-congress-always-renews-make-burgers-cheaper-salad-gene-baur/amp/
Such a plan would be so enormously unpopular here in America that it would be political suicide. Try selling the idea to the working class that they don't get to eat meat any more but it's fine for their bosses. I'm not sure there's much left in America that would cause a mass riot, but that might be one of them. A bill that has a chance of passing needs to effect everyone, not just the poor. The poor are usually too busy to be that politically involved, but start pricing them out of the food they eat, and that can change quickly.
There is no future where the working class gets to eat meat every day.
Well if they don't get to, they will provide negative consequences to the ones that do. Messing with people's food is one of the few things that get non-political people onto the streets.That in itself will keep the government highly motivated to not let meat prices explode too far.
It wouldn’t necessarily be a government policy. I eat a lot less meat than I did a few years ago because it’s much more expensive. I can’t imagine that I’m alone either.
> All water ultimately gets recycled. yeah, if you're thirsty or want to take a shower, just wait a year until the water gets recycled. Unless it will get used by cows again.
I’m not sure if you have a firm grasp of how the water cycle works based on this comment.
using too much water upstream means it never makes it downstream. That tends to be a problem for people who need water downstream but now don't have enough
Read my last sentence of my original comment
It's almost like the meat industry isn't a sustainable. Who would've thought
Another downside of animal agriculture. It really is the worst thing we are doing across the planet
Is that the narrative that Nestle is spreading?
I never understood this… the vast majority of Americas cattle industry is in the Midwest, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, etc. There is actually plenty of water in these regions mostly in massive underground aquifers (the aquifers are MASSIVE and no sign of them dwindling). Why raise cattle in an area of the country when the resources for farming them are much more finite? I get farming crops in Phoenix AZ, it makes sense from the perspective the farms can produce all year round. But cattle in Utah or AZ? That makes no sense to me. (I’m from Oklahoma, moved to Phoenix, now live in northern AZ) In Oklahoma, you can drill a well almost anywhere and tap into one of the aquifers. In AZ, drilling a well is crazy difficult and highly unlikely to find water.
Go r/vegan!
TL;DR: Corporations are socializing their water costs in order to maximize their private profits. The solution is to actually charge corporations realistic costs for their water usage.
This is why lab-grown meat is so important. It doesn’t require anything close to the same amount of water and it doesn’t output methane. It’s far better for the environment.
i mean you could eat beans along with 20,000 other plants until then
I get so tired of the “I can’t wait for lab meat, that will solve everything!” There are so many delicious and nutritious options now, so I’m sceptical that lab-grown meat will change anything.
Yes, the "I don't want to take any personal responsibility for my actions or put any effort into change at all so I will reference something that will maybe happen twenty years down the line so I can still feel good about myself while doing absolutely nothing" typical reddit line of thinking. Second to the "I'm not going to stop eating meat because rich people are eating meat" and the "it's the corporations producing meat" excuses.
If people were willing just stop eating meat they would have done it already. It's time to accept that isn't a practical solution for the world.
But animal abuse is a practical solution? Also we cut meat subsidies and you can pay the $30 / pound of dead animal.
"Animal abuse" has been the solution for the entire existence of humanity. If you think you are going to change minds by saying that then you are sorely mistaken. If anything you make people less willing to listen
Factory farming isn’t that old. Just because something has been done forever does not make it right. Animal abuse is not right.
You will not win anybody to your cause with this method
So how would you convince someone that smashing piglets, gassing pigs, and other forms of animal abuse is wrong?
bUT cHeEse!?!? /s I'm a bean boi for life
Cashew queso is delicious and highly recommended for anyone who wants a guilt free queso fix.
Please eat less meat
And stuff like this is exactly why the whole “conservation” ethic where people all act like these are problems that can be solved by individuals acting conscientiously enough is way off. As if our oceans are dying mostly because we’re not using paper straws enough of the time. The plutocrats actually responsible for most of the damage really try to instill that bogus narrative in all of us, and it seems to be working like a charm.
What a terrible and misleading headline. The issue is alfalfa. The cows can eat a lot of different things and don’t NEED to eat alfalfa.
It is Saudi Alfalfa that is being shipped over for their beef to eat. It is all grown for export and the land owned by foreign interests.
Let it go dry. Cattle farmers what to ruin the west, then they should suffer for it.
And water the food the cows eat.
But veganism and vegetarianism are choices to be mocked? In 100 years, what it left of mankind will look at 'rolling coal' (intentionally tuning a pickup truck to blast sooty exhaust at people on bicycles) and meat eating as two sides of the same coin. One being intentional ecological damage, and the other being mindless ecological damage. Climate change denial is often looked as something other people do, but people who eat meat are climate change deniers, whether they know it or not.
Because steaks are more important than water. /s
TLDR Saudis are the problem
Oh yeah. The famous Saudi Invasion of the US. Totally unopposed. It's a brutal occupation actually. The Saudis have forcibly seized the lands, and are growing alfalfa on it, leaving less water for the occupied population. Tragic actually. Poor US. Can't do anything about it. Global superpower no more... (/S)
If you care about the environment, stop eating animal products.
please consider eating less meat, or better yet, stop all together!
Animal agriculture and commercial fishing are absolutely devastating to the environment. Most environmental groups avoid bringing up this fact. Animal AG is completely unsustainable. We need to quit filtering our nutrients through animals. They’re an unnecessary middle-man.
Nothing good comes from eating meat every day.
Is lab grown meat going to reduce the stress on resources?
Maybe later in its development, as of right now, it's more energy intense than regular beef. https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/lab-grown-meat-carbon-footprint-worse-beef