Damn if only we had a centrally planned economy that could mobilize industry to build out water-efficient irrigation systems across the entire effected area. Alas, that would be communism!
Agreed, but making it go down by eliminating the large part of it used for livestock feed would no doubt drastically help, which was jack's original (and valid) point.
That's not accounting for cattle feed, which is an enormous land and water use, and drives the concentration of human-destined crops into places like California
Is cattle feed typically grown locally? I'd think corn/grains at least would be shipped in. I don't know if its economically viable to ship bales of hay in.
The midwest farmland being used to grow cattle feed could be reoriented towards human-destined food. Those places receive way, way more rain than California. I'm looking at the whole US food system: animal agriculture has caused our most critical farmland to be concentrated in a region of the country extremely vulnerable to climate change.
livestock is literally the lowest category of usage on the Colorado river, its horrible land for it.
grass, intensive cash crops like almonds, and flood irrigation need curbed
I think that's misleading because although livestock don't directly use a lot of water...
And a lot of those crops are no doubt food for livestock.
reducing irrigation is absolute. it doesnt matter if it was 100% for human consumption, it must go down.
Damn if only we had a centrally planned economy that could mobilize industry to build out water-efficient irrigation systems across the entire effected area. Alas, that would be communism!
Capitalism is the dumbest economic system.
Agreed, but making it go down by eliminating the large part of it used for livestock feed would no doubt drastically help, which was jack's original (and valid) point.
That's not accounting for cattle feed, which is an enormous land and water use, and drives the concentration of human-destined crops into places like California
Is cattle feed typically grown locally? I'd think corn/grains at least would be shipped in. I don't know if its economically viable to ship bales of hay in.
The midwest farmland being used to grow cattle feed could be reoriented towards human-destined food. Those places receive way, way more rain than California. I'm looking at the whole US food system: animal agriculture has caused our most critical farmland to be concentrated in a region of the country extremely vulnerable to climate change.