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Is Agriculture Sucking Fresh Water Dry?
sciencehabit writes "The average American uses enough water each year to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and global agriculture consumes a whopping 92% of all fresh water used annually. Those are the conclusions of the most comprehensive analysis to date of global water use, which also finds that one-fifth of humankind's water consumption flows across international borders as 'virtual water' — the water needed to produce a commodity, such as meat or electronics, if the ultimate consumers were to make it themselves rather than outsource its growth or manufacture."
if the ultimate consumers were to make it themselves rather than outsource its growth or manufacture.
There are some good solutions in The Humanure Handbook. That does not change corporate agriculture, but a little awareness on our behaviour is a good thing.
As Mark Boyle (The Moneyless Man) once said: if we knew how hard it was to purify our drinking water, we sure as hell wouldn't shit in it.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Do we actually need all those agriculture products?
Yes, we do.
The real question is, do we need to use that much water in agriculture? As the Israeli have proved, there is much that can be done to reduce water consumption when growing plants.
The real question is, do we need to use that much water in agriculture?
Do we need to use that much fresh water in agriculture, I wonder. A lower-level filtration process yielding "grey water" for these uses would probably be fine and save energy over a full treatment-plant supply.
It's true that we can use much less water in growing our food but it's not easily done. More to the point it's not done cheaply and that's the biggest issue. So long as it adds to the cost of food (even if it's only pennies to a pound of tomatoes) there's going to be an issue with getting the majority of farmers to change their practices. Especially in third world countries where getting those improved practices out to the farmers can prove difficult.
It's certainly a worth while thing if an area is experiencing a lack of rainfall (as in much of Africa) or if their aquifer is beginning to run low (apparently an issue in some areas of the Outback in Australia) but without some incentive it's going to be difficult to get people to change.
It's just a basic business decision.
If it's more profitable to use lots of "fresh" water than it is to reduce that water usage through different agricultural methods, then a good businessman will continue to use lots of "fresh" water.
If the opposite becomes true, then a good businessman will adjust accordingly.
Welcome to Capitalism.
Kid-proof tablet..
Do we actually need all those agriculture products?
Yes, we sure as hell do. We are TOTALLY dependent upon agriculture for our survival - at least in civilization as we know it.
Isn't there a different way to use water for the same purpose with possibly higher efficiency?
There is. Eat less meat. It takes tremendous amounts of water to produce the corn and, to a lesser extent, the wheat that we feed to become pork and cow meat.
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The French don't get through that much in total.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd encourage anyone interested (and worried) by these issues to look up and study everything they can find about Permaculture. Solutions are available, if we use our brains.
Australians are dealing with it as well. The cities are drinking up more and more water. In the east where they have lots of water there is no question of starving the farms to feed the cities. But in the west water is a limited quantity.
Sure, we could kill the bread basket of the US... or in california's case it's fruit-basket. But to what end? We're already importing a lot of food from mexico because the farms have been starved for decades. Huge stretches of California that used to be covered in farms are now dust. It has nothing to do with land management. The land is fine... there is no water. And there used to be lots. The cities drank it.
Now, the cities need it... and if I have to choose between the cities getting the water or the farms then I'll choose the cities. But it's a dangerous game and the best solution is to build more dams, more reservoirs, more pipe lines, and more water treatment centers. All of that costs money but the cities have NOT built water infrastructure to keep pace with their consumption. The farms use a lot of water but their consumption has gone DOWN. The consumption of the cities has gone up and they haven't built anything. They just grow and grow without building new infrastructure for water. Even the big cities in the east aren't keeping pace. New York City has some giant water pipes under it that pump water out of an aquifer under the city. When initially built, the city only needed one of those pipes. The rest was extra for growth or if they wanted to shut down one for a time. Now they can't shut down any of them and are piping water in from farther away. But they've built nothing to deal with it.
Contrary to what many environmentalists are saying, sustainable growth doesn't mean "no growth" instead it means expanding our infrastructure as we grow so that we don't have shortages. Killing the farms to get water to the cities only shifts problems. Do that and all our food will say "product of mexico" or canada or some other place because we won't grow anything. The Australians are having the same problem. Huge amounts of water flow into the sea untapped in eastern Australia. Dams that were scheduled to be built 30 or 40 years ago were never built. It would apparently spoil the view or something. So farmers in Australia are literally committing suicide because their family farms are being starved of water and driving them out of business. To say nothing of the fact that the country is increasingly dependent on foreign importation of food when previously they were largely self sufficient.
Point being... Do not starve the farms. If the cities need water then stop looking at who to take it from. Man up and build more supply. There is plenty of water flowing out into the ocean that is never touched to say nothing of rainwater that is never touched. Furthermore, cities could much more readily make use of gray water for cleaning/etc then the farms. Starve the farms and you'll be sorry... it will just mean food prices start doubling and you lose all control over food quality standards because its all imported.
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> or if their aquifer is beginning to run low (apparently an
> issue in some areas of the Outback in Australia)
nah, they're used to it and have known it from childhood. Texas is a much more interesting example, as the town & city population density is much larger, and a large proportion of the state depends on "faith" for their resource planning needs and actively lobby against educating their own children.
> but without some incentive it's going to be difficult to get
> people to change.
a big city like Houston running out of water is quite interesting to watch. (as has happened)
The problem is most water on the planet is full of salt. You can't use salt-laden "grey water" to grow things.
You also want to take some care to ensure it's not full of heavy metals. Then there's the problem of whether other contaminants would be ignored or absorbed by plants.
Basically, at the point where you might consider it on a large scale, it's generally just easier to use fresh or drinking quality recycled water.
Here's a novel idea - you could try not feeding corn to cows. They can't eat it anyway, so it's a collossal waste of resources.
Here's a hint - most of the world's farmland isn't rolling midwestern cornfields. Most of the world manages to raise livestock just fine.
Partly it's a question of preference - Americans like bland greasy meat, so their livestock farming practices reflect that.
The perception is that when something is cheap, it is of low value so it doesn't matter if you consume too much of it.
If you look at areas where water is scarce and where wars are fought over it, or where it has to be desalinated i,e, it's expensive, you'll find the users are a lot more careful over how much is used and how it is used.
Compare US irrigation methods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irrigation1.jpg
with Persian Qanat methods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat
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As long as we can use it to pay bills, I'm fine with it. Get it in your head already, ALL money is "pretend" as you put it.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
No, we don't. Too much of that ag produce is going into feeding cows, pigs, etc and in producing biodiesel. With biodiesel they are only counting carbon savings, and not counting water, nitrogen, phosphorous and hidden energy costs (e.g. in producing fertilizer)
Why don't we use Antarctic Ice? It should be transportable in large quantities. A super oil tanker sized ship should be able to supply some i guess.
But would it be financially realistic?
Indeed ... 'corn fed' meat is not the norm in most of the world. Here in Australia it's almost all grass-fed. Then again, we don't have the harsh winters that necessitate keeping cattle indoors for several months each year, so it's easier just to let em roam free and munch on the grass all year.
Incidentally, I honestly don't know why Americans prefer corn-fed meat. It seems fattier than grass-fed and doesn't taste 'right' to me, but I suppose that's simply because I grew up eating 'our' meat and got used to that taste. As you say, a preference thing.
Maybe using lots of water in agriculture is actually a good thing.
Lets actually look at what side effects might be if plants weren't getting enough water, for a start photosynthesis needs lots of water for the electron exchange of the reaction, now yes there are alternatives (arsenite) usually they are toxic, also only work in specific bacteria designed to do it that way.
Fundamentally, the more water the more photosynthesis, the more sugar (for us and livestock to eat) and oxygen we get. Therefore maximizing water usage for agriculture without drowning the plants is a good thing for all of us. It's not like water doesn't fall from the sky, it is the most abundant substance on this planet and not using it in one area does not suddenly help get it in desert areas where there is droughts and famines.
With the passing of time, local crops have dwindled due to inter regional trade, and supply demand constraints. For example, in arid regions of India, instead of wheat "Jowar, Bajra, Ragi...." etc., were grown which use much less water. but since majority eat wheat, in the interest of business, farmers shifted to Wheat, which uses more water. In other regions, which never grew rice(due to lack of water), canals saw increase in rice production, and movement of local populace to wheat and rice, instead of the local cereals which consume less water.
So everybody does not need to eat rice. Rice and wheat users can have other cereals added to their diets, and increase demand, and some cultivation area can be reclaimed, and balance restored.
Another aspect is hybrids. Many high yield varieties(which in the long run are not all that more beneficial) often require higher water content. In irrigated regions, people often switch to those varieties. In the short run you have better profits, but since these are not as resistant to local conditions(in some cases), it also means increased pesticide expense.
So with intelligent Farming, and growing crops actually suited to the region, water usage can be minimized.
Apart from that, there is the irrigation question. Using drip irrigation drops water usage by over 60-70%. We have used it on an piece of land where irrigated water was a scarcity, and illegal mining killed local rivulets and creeks. Due to very less quantity of ground water, and only perennial source being an artesian well, we had two options, stop growing, or use wisely. thanks to some govt subsidies and support, we were able to setup a drip irrigation system, which resulted in low water usage, and now we have surplus water.
Unfortunately, much of agriculture, even in developed world, does not move to this kind of savings unless there is a sword hanging on the head. Countries like Israel have water shortage, so they have moved to intelligent use. If other places where shortage is not there yet, also move, it will result in water saving.
Lastly, in many areas, rain water is not stored effectively, and a lot goes waste(flows into the sea). If a large part of that can be channeled to groundwater using recharge zones, it will replenish groundwater which can actually help people survive a year or 2 of dry season.
That said, other than conservation, many places can also have strict policies to block untreated industrial waste flowing into rivers, which will result in higher fresh water availability
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This study borders on sleight-of-hand to my mind. At least the way it is presented is misleading.
The headline says that 92% of freshwater use is in agriculture. What it doesn't mention is that the vast majority of that "use" of water is rain that happens to fall on farmland. We could increase that number by converting land use to arable land without changing any natural flow of water. For instance, the city of Adelaide is about the same area as the county of Cornwall and is built largely on prime agricultural land. Moving the city 100 miles North East onto unfarmable land and resuming agriculture there would noticeably increase the agricultural use of water - but it would actually be an environmentally good thing.
When it comes to diverting the natural course of water (extraction from rivers, building dams, draining lakes etc - what you might call exploiting the natural resource), the use of water in agriculture is much less - the majority here supplies water for urban residences and industry.
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I honestly don't know why Americans prefer corn-fed meat. It seems fattier than grass-fed
You answered your own question. We're Americans, and we want more fat. Fat taste good, mmmm+e@Ds%*a`v=\|3s};aH
NO HEARTBEAT
paintball
Because water sprayed on plants and on the ground dissipates into space! And we have angered the sky gods so they are not sprinkling new water upon us as much!
The author of the article needs a bit more education in earth science. Yes I know the problem with pesticide and fertilizer contamination is real but if areas do proper watershed management it's just fine. What is the REAL problem is when you get idiots in a dry area wanting to pipe water out of a different watershed to them. For example, all the morons living in California wanting great lakes water. and large dams that reduce the flow to create recreational lakes for rich people.
Plus for example Arizona, Nevada, and California has a population greater than it's natural resources can handle, so people need to start moving away or live with the lack of water. Disrupting a watershed in that way will only cause problems for the area having the water taken out. It's there because of a balance of the water consumed is equal to the water collected from rain over the watershed area.
I'd support Pumping the water from the end of the Mississippi to California, but they don't want that water, they want that clean stuff we have up here, not the 1100 miles of turd dumping that happens starting in Chicago. Which brings up another point, rivers flowing to the oceans uses 80X more water than agriculture and industry combined. Why are we not talking how rivers are sucking fresh water dry?
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So, we will be needing windtraps and stillsuits soon?
And how long before a company starts selling Perrie-air when the breathable air starts to run out?
xD
This is a better link.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/06/1109936109.full.pdf
Agriculture does not consume water it uses water. Virtually all the water is returned to the eco system after use.
However there are different sources of water. Ground water versus surface water. Depletion of ground water is not sustainable as water table levels are dropping. Surface water use is sustainable but also has consequences as stream dry up as they are diverted or become filled with water so contaminated it can't be re-used down stream.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Part of the problem is the traditional large subsidy that agricultural water gets (both via the infrastructure costs and in direct pricing). Farming would make better use of water if it had to pay the price.
PS: "Olympic-size swimming pools per year" is a strange way to measure water usage. "about 6.8 cubic metres per day" is a much clearer way to express this number. In particular, this makes it clear that low-flow toilets have a negligible effect on water use compared to dishwashing, showers, etc.
Water ain't just water, water is all about how expensive it it at the point of use. How much energy is required to provide potable water at the point of use.
The underlying corporate psychopathic distortion, is there is a lack of water. The reality is corporation want to suck up all the cheaply accessible water and then sell it at inflated prices to match the high cost of remaining water sources. Simple straight forward psychopath economics.
Water is not too salty, too hot, too cold, too contaminated, it is just to expensive and they poor are denied access because they can not afford to potable water once they cheaply accessible resources have been consumed by greed.
Serious about reducing water usage, where is the government mandated shift too aquaponics where possible, an agriculture system with the highest water usage efficiencies, little or no waste and the highest food ouptut per land usage.
Where are the government demands that user pays, including corporations for the average total cost of producing water, rather than corporations have access to the cheapest charged water sources and everyone else getting charged much higher prices (total water cost should be averaged and then user pays at the average rate).
The only difference between a clean fresh river and reverse osmosis of sea water is cost and energy consumption. The war here is access to cheap water for the majority versus corporate greed.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
No, building a wall between your delicious citrus fruits' water supply and other people who might need it.
It really puts grain dumping at sea to keep the commodities prices high into perspective.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
>>Do we actually need all those agriculture products?
>Yes, we do.
What if we reduced our meat consumption, and reduced consumption of other water-hungry foods?
You are of course very correct about being more efficient about water use, as proved by many people in many desert and semi-desert areas.
The corn farmers lobbyists are too influential in the US...
They want to continue producing corn, and won't even consider changing their business model...
So instead of looking to produce appropriate products to meet demand, they are looking for ways to force their existing products onto the market, even when they are not the best choice...
Case in point high fructose corn syrup, it is a terrible sweetener and requires considerably more processing than sugar, making it more expensive to produce...
In the US, high taxes on sugar force the use of HFCS...
In other countries without such manipulative taxes, market forces result in sugar being used because its a more suitable product.
The situation is so ridiculous, that people in the US actually go out of their way and often pay more to buy Coke that's been imported from Mexico because it uses real sugar instead of HFCS.
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Some coal seam gas wells must evacuate water from the great artesian basin for years before they can have anywhere near productive gas yields. Around the Injune area, I've seen these mind-bogglingly huge evaporation ponds - actually trying to transfer precious groundwater back into the sky
And although I've heard Santos are trying hard to make their reverse-osmosis plants work (that would be trying to pump water out of the aquifers at the gas extraction wells, and then back in somewhere I assume has no gas yield potential), they're having big problems making it work properly at scale.
I wish I had some better links, but it's of serious concern:
Almost 300 billion litres of water extracted with the gas annually. I've never heard what price Santos, Origin, QGC etc. are paying for this water: are they in fact paying any at all? And, "Millions of tonnes" of waste salt to be dumped somewhere.
I know the situation in Queensland. And I know how much influence the Queensland greens have on the state labor government there. The only conclusion I can draw is that the Greens are just as corrupt as the rest of them.
Posting AC, because I used to be closer to this stuff and should know better.
The water to produce various food products: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_water#Agricultural_products the production of 1 kg beef costs 15,500 L water the production of 1 kg broken rice costs 3,400 L water the production of 1 kg eggs costs 3,300 L water the production of 1 kg wheat costs 1,300 L water Google on "Meatless Monday", it is an international effort to get people to eat meatless for one day a week ( Monday ) to reduce pollution and other environmental problems. One day a week have cereal for breakfast, A PB & J and Banana sandwhich for lunch and a plate of pasta for dinner. I've seen various articles that doing ONLY meatless monday helps the environment more than being a pretentious "locavore" all week long. If you are interested in more information about the connection between good choices and the environment here are some short articles: http://beforewisdom.com/blog/environment/un-urges-global-move-to-meat-and-dairy-free-diet/ http://beforewisdom.com/blog/environment/go-greendrop-meat/
Seems they successfully made it out with Gatorate instead! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
"Americans like bland greasy meat, so their livestock farming practices reflect that."
ITYM cheap meat.
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I think by gray water, he meant partially treated sewage water.
And, so long as the toxic stuff was clean out, maybe.
The problems with the bacterial and fungal contaminants would still be present, and even if they were initially cleaned out, some new stuff would get in and grow - it's a good growth medium. Care would have to be used.
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The problem is most water on the planet is full of salt. You can't use salt-laden "grey water" to grow things.
What year is it?
See also AIWPS.
Basically, at the point where you might consider it on a large scale, it's generally just easier to use fresh or drinking quality recycled water.
Easier is not the issue here, sustainability is. There's no question that if you continually pump more from aquifers than goes in you will have problems.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
WTF???? Feeding the trolls....
"They can't eat it anyway, so it's a collossal waste of resources."
Citation? Because I have 300 dairy cows out back that will call you a lier. BTW, you don't feed cows, you feed there rumen bugs, which then feed the cow.
Actually, modern agriculture is exceptionally efficient. Problems lie in other things:
1. Our diet, specifically that of Western nations. Meat production is far more water-intensive then similar value (in terms of energy received from eating produce) plant production.
2. Our numbers. Amount of the people on the planet has exploded over last hundred years or so as child and adult mortality basically collapsed with advent of modern medicine.
3. People born in the cities having never encountered the reality of food production. We have things like "organically grown food", which is essentially an older, far less efficient way of doing agriculture (among other things in terms of water efficiency).
So as a result, we have agriculture that is forced to support an ever growing appetites of ever growing amount of people. As a result we're forced to use large amounts of water to irrigate the fields and mind you, this irrigation is far more efficient then it ever was in our history in terms of water used per yields received!
Partly it's a question of preference - Americans like bland greasy meat, so their livestock farming practices reflect that.
Actually, many do not. We like spices on it. For example, I eat low fat ranged beef, with habanero sauce. Good stuff. And absolutely nothing bland about that. Of course, I have seen that most veggi dishes are about as bland as it gets.
But hey, your accusation says a lot.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I honestly don't know why Americans prefer corn-fed meat
They don't. They just don't know any better.
FYI, the US government has subsidized the corn industry (i.e. they take money from other people, by force, and hand it over to the corn industry, like some kind of mafia scheme). This has allowed the corn industry to become a dominant force that would never have occurred in a free market. You will find corn sneaking into foods you would never have thought: ice cream for example (corn syrup, being subsidized, is artificially cheaper than real sugar). The situation is ridiculous -- and reeks of injustice -- but as you are probably aware, there is no such thing as a temporary government program.
The people behind it are making millions; that was, of course, the entire point.
Another problem that could be solved if we started an emergency nuclear power plant building program, on the scale of the mobilization for WW2
plenty of electricity available for desalinization.
Water used to make a product that's shipped isn't at all necessarily water that's shipped. If the water is consumed in place but not included in the product it's not shipped. So claims that "virtual water flows across borders" is BS.
Likewise water that's used along its natural flow path, and cleaned (enough) to return it to its original destination, is impacting only in the place where it's diverted. When we put a factory on a plot of land we disrupt that land, and we're willing to accept some deletion from nature. Nature is very resilient, and not all diversions and conversions of it have unacceptable consequences.
We do go too far, and we do waste far too much. But exaggerations like these don't do anything except discredit the already difficult efforts to require management of what we use.
--
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One of the things that goes on in permaculture is the idea of being careful about water use when growing even traditionally water-intensive crops. The idea is that you can actually do a LOT without a lot of water, and also that many mature ecosystems (including rain forests) tend to recycle a lot of their water in the form of transpiration turning into rainfall.
So while we need a lot of water to be used in agriculture, it can be done efficiently, and with a surprisingly low level of water input even in arid environments.
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That is fit for the 21st century. We had a food revolution in the 20th century, where we used massive amounts of fertilizer and massive amounts of water, this resulted in massive amounts of food. But at what cost? We chopped down most of the great rainforests and are quickly depleting what remains of the prime topsoil left in the world. We need a paradigm shift. We have the technology to make maximum use of water, we only need to make the investments needed to reap the savings. There are numerous small scale initiatives around the world, utilizing mangroves, saltwater irrigation, greenhouses, hydroponics. Wastage results in more than 1/3 of food going bad or being thrown away due to market conditions. Much work needs to be done if we are to feed 10 billion humans.
As to what the food amounted to... it amounted to your parents being able to eat and you being able to eat. Willing to go hungry to save the planet? Even if you are, which is unlikely most would beat you to within an inch of your life for a sandwich after going without food for a few days. Your moral position only survives if people stay well fed. If people go hungry everything breaks down and people just stop caring about everything but where to get food - NOW.
As to the environmental cost, you're mostly talking about the third world that is practicing slash and burn. Both Africa and south america have a big problem with that and it is destroying their environment. In the first world, it isn't a problem. Our agricultural revolution didn't do that. In fact, I think by most estimates we have larger forests today then we did 400 years ago. That sounds absurd, but apparently the old forests burned a lot and due to our land management... eg logging and fire departments... they don't burn down as much. I'm not 100 percent sure on that but I did hear that from what I considered a credible source.
As to prime topsoil, again this is mostly a third world issue. There are mismanaged farms in the US but they're the exception to the rule. Farming is a professional business. It's actually one of the more scientific and specialized fields in our society. Farmers... especially the large ones are run like long term investments. They're not going to let the farm go to hell because that would spell doom for their business.
As to mangroves... not sure what you're talking about there. How do you get food out of them? I don't think you can eat them no matter how they're processed. I supposed you could eat the cellos... but you wouldn't get any nutrition out of it. Some food companies add what is basically wood pulp as a filler to food... it's called "cellos" on the ingredients. On the bright side, it's low calories and won't hurt you.
As to salt water irrigation, that is an interesting idea but unfortunately most plant species are poisoned by salt water. Would you be willing to accept some genetic engineering of existing staple crops if it meant they could be raised on salt water? If so, that would be a real 21st century agricultural revolution. We've got wheat that will grow in subzero climate because we spliced it with icefish so it produces it's own antifreeze. Down side is that people that are allergic to fish can sometimes have a reaction to it. It's still a learning process but it's very promising.
As to greenhouses and hydroponics... Expensive. But possibly it's for the best. Some of the larger agro farms might be able to finance something like this but it would require a significant increase in food prices to be worth it. The problem is that if food prices in the US rise we'll just import the food rather then growing it locally. So to make this happen we'd either need to cut off trade to other countries or have food prices raised internationally which would cause the third world to starve... millions of dead babies. I put that image into your head because it's easy to say just raise prices in the first world. But in the third food is almost the only thing they actually buy. Rent for mud huts is not something that really happens. And th
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What is so alarming about using 92% of all the water that is used in agriculture? If we cut agricultural water use in half, it would still account for 84% of all the water that is used?
100% percent of all the fresh water that is used is not 100% of all available fresh water. Some places have too much water, others too little, the primary issue is the distribution of the water, then the protection of it from harmful pollutants - the great thing about water is that it is about 100% reusable.
Ken
And the OTHER real question is; why does the average American use so much water?
As an American living abroad for nearly 12 years, I noticed a dramatic difference in water consumption after moving out of the US. Where I live in Europe (Finland), we use roughly 10-20% of what I was used to in the US. People here don't let taps run. They don't take long showers. The appliances in the home (and machines in businesses) are designed to use FAR less water than the equivalent devices in the US. My washing machine uses worst-case 10-15% of a typical US-made washing machine. Ditto for the dishwasher. Yes, the appliances and machines cost more, better engineering is required.
When something is cheap, you don't CARE about waste. This is part of the problem with what I call the cheap-ification of America. Everything must be cheap, cheap, cheap. It is a too price-driven market. Witness the success of Walmart, which has completely destroyed large numbers of otherwise fully working businesses, all in the name of CHEAP. Let's not even get into their business practices, hiring practices and treatment of their own employees. I vowed never again to step into a Walmart and to be first in line to raise my voice should they attempt to set up shop here (luckily, they are mostly absent in the EU).
It's quite easy to imagine us using *much* less water in growing our food, and coincidentally spending a lot less money to produce it. It's just hard to do that without changing what we eat.
If we were faced with an agricultural water crisis in the US, we could easily fix it by eating less beef -- at least beef that wasn't grass-fed. So I think that this problem might be naturally self-limiting in North America. As we approached the limits of the water available, the price of the most water-intensive foods would go up, and demand would shift to more water-efficient foods.
The problem would solve itself, if we don't *try* to solve it. But the problem is that we *would* try to solve it. We'd invest public money to find ways of keeping the price of beef low, rather than letting the rising price of beef curb beef consumption. We might undertake massive public-works projects to divert water to the supply-chain of beef production. It's not that reducing the price of beef is an inherently bad thing to do, it's that costly beef isn't really a problem if there's enough capacity to produce food in general. Treating it like a problem is a waste of time, effort and money. Perhaps worse, most of the things we could do to fix the bogus "problem" would create real problems. Subsidizing beef will exacerbate the water shortage and strain public budgets. Diverting water will damage ecosystems and livelihoods dependent on them.
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Many rainforests if you remove the trees are quite arid an unsuitable for crops ... as has been seen ...
But with the trees they are very lush and full of water
They don't make more water they just recycle it very efficiently ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Do we actually need all those agriculture products?
Yes, we do.
No, we don't.
What do you thing we need it for? Not starving? The worldwide food industry output is enough feed double the people on this planet and feed them well! But obviously that's not how it works. This is because humans are greedy and selfish and most are idiots on top of that.
Well, true enough about their gut fauna and flora, but if you're just feeding them grain then they will be shitting most of it out untouched.
Up here in Scotland, where it rains a lot and never gets much above 25C or below freezing, we tend to feed spent distillery mash (draff) mixed with shredded sugar beet pulp in the winter to supplement the poor grazing. That's substantially broken down by the mashing process and seems to do rather better than even bruised oats. It also stays hot for weeks after it's been delivered - I'm not sure if it may be fermenting slightly.
I life in Germany and we have the problem today, that the sewer system was created for much more water usage http://www.hydrologie.uni-oldenburg.de/ein-bit/12045.html (german). As you can see: After re-industrialization (1975) the consumption growed steadily until 1990. This was more or less the time when it became common in Germany that wasting water, especially drinking water is a stupid idea. In http://www.me-vermitteln.de/Portals/0/Redaktion/grafiken/umwelt/Entwicklung%20Wasserverbrau%20pro%20Person_g.jpg you can see that the current trend is still pointing downwards.
For comparission of water usage per person world wide: http://chartsbin.com/view/1455
Here's an idea... Go just a bit deeper. Why the heck aren't we using land for things that that land is suitable for? That includes other things as well as just the style/crops for farming.
We build housing on prime farmland, as small farmers want to "cash out" and retire. At the same time, we irrigate deserts and turn them into farmland. Most of the time I agree that "the invisible hand of the marketplace" can come to a pretty decent solution, I just think that it can be very slow and damaging in the time it takes to get there. This is one of those cases, and it's all because of what I'll call for the moment, "false valuation."
I once made an argument here on /. about "inherent value" and was promptly schooled by someone that nothing had inherent value - the only value anything had is that which the market assigns to it. This thread cites exactly one of those cases, and the commodity being poorly valued isn't just water, but inherently arable land.
We tend to take something for granted - the marketplace assumes it's "just there for cheap/free" and neglects its value in making decisions. First we squander the resource, then with time we assign it a small value and begin to manage it in small-value ways. Eventually its value increases and we expand on those small-value management techniques. The problem is that sometimes those small-value management techniques are entirely inappropriate and often counter-productive as the resource moves to high-value status.
We first settled in areas where land could be farmed, usually near rivers for transportation. As populations grew we turned the nearby farmland into towns and cities, and farmed land further away. Both the farmland and water were taken for granted - near zero value. Eventually land value started increasing - based on its building value, and farmland was still near-zero value. That started us doing things like irrigating desert land - like in parts of California. The Colorado River was a "cheap and easy" source of water for irrigation. Aquifers were a "cheap and easy" source of water in other areas.
We grew into land use patterns based on "cheap and easy" water that is becoming less cheap and less easy, and those land use patterns are a big part of the problem. If we were farming where it's really "cheap and easy" to farm, and building our towns and cities on land that's no good for farming, perhaps we'd be better off. But we've come so far down the road we're on that this is almost impossible.
I came to this realization at Disney World, on the "Soarin'" ride. Part of the ride went over the French countryside where a village was built onto a rocky crag, and all of the nearby land was farmed. This struck me as the exact opposite of the US, where we would have turned the farmland into suburbia, then terraced or leveled the rocky crag and turned it into farmland.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
we could easily fix it by eating less beef -- at least beef that wasn't grass-fed.
We already fixed this problem in America. Our cows eat corn, just like everyone and everything else in the country.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Yes, it's a question a perspective. That's the great thing about Permaculture- it can change your perspective. Thinking in fossil fuel terms about water ("we need to use X gallons for Y outputs") won't do. The earth has supported life for 4 billion years and is essentially a closed system- it has had no 'inputs' of water and no waste.
What's important is understand how water is stored and moves through a system. Using slope and inclines, storing water in the earth and 'pumping' it back up through deep rooted plants. Animal urine becomes nutrients for plants which then filter the water to be used again. The same water can be used dozens of times passing through different elements in an intelligently designed Permaculture system.
I wish more nerds would read Permaculture. A million Permaculture trained engineers could change the planet forever.
The AC mentioned nothing about lesbians, democrats, or mayors. All of that came out of your own biases and prejudices. The only group the AC mentioned were the religious (those who depend on "faith"), particularly those that are turning their backs on current schooling practices. Furthermore, the only thing he said about them is that they are a large proportion of the state.
No, he mentioned the state of Texas, said "large proportion of the state depends on "faith" for their resource planning needs" and then mentioned Houston specifically. Assuming that the OP meant religion when he said faith listing Houston as an example disproves his entire point. See, the mayor of Houston is an open lesbian, and Democrat, which is exactly the group that the OP was NOT trying to blame. That's not my "own biases and prejudices". That's from CNN.
I know what the OP meant. The mistake that the OP made was assuming that the red state of Texas was an all red state. Of course, all reds (conservatives) are religious too, right (yet another stereotype)? He was trying to blame the problems of Texas on the "reds" and listed a blue portion of the state as an example. I was pointing out that the OP has a "bias and prejudice" against conservatives and the religious and I used the his own evidence to disprove his case entirely and point out that he is a bigot. I guess that description includes you as well since you are so willing to blame religion for issues that religion has nothing to do with. It's kinda like the old days, when racists would blame all their problems on those damn (insert racial slur here), except you are blaming religion. If you place "Christians" in the place of "racial slur", the argument doesn't change. The level of bigotry doesn't change either.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Most farmers do everything they can to get rain water to run off the fields so they don't flood and over-water the crops. Then they pump water out of the ground and apply it to the fields as needed. The rain water then dumps very quickly into the rivers and causes flooding down stream. A simple way to take care of this is to dig a large basin (1-2 percent the area of the fields and say 20-30 feet deep) to collect the rain water, then pump that back onto the fields as needed and only when it's dry would they need to pump water from the deep aquifer. It would help all of the problems, but would cost a bit to set up. Oh, and this would re-apply the fertilizer that washes away when it rains - which is another problem both down-stream and as a cost to farmers and a natural resource issue (phosphorous).
All those problems come down to poor resource management.
I'd be surprised if most Americans do truly prefer it, although I suppose you get used to the way things are and many people are very used to industrialised food. I saw a TV show recently where free range, organic chicken lost in a taste test to industrial battery chicken. People said the free range bird tasted 'too strong'. It depressed the hell out of me.
A cow is a grazer and should be eating grass. E-coli thrives in a corn fed cow's belly so the meat is laced with anti-biotics (last I heard America was packing beef in chlorine). Diseased, fatty, bland, drugged meat.. hhmmm....
The areas in which most farming is done, i.e. out in the sticks, also have the least amount of gray water due to the low population density. The only way this idea would work was if infrastructure was built to not only partially treat the sewage and runoff from the cities, but then transport it possibly hundreds of miles to where it's most needed for agriculture.
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Water shortage is slowly manifesting in some dry places in Western world as climate change keeps rumbling on. It's far worse in 3rd world, where lack of water infrastructure is combined with inefficient farming methods.
The issue will likely become more and more evident in the next few decades, as climate change causes some of the dry areas that are used for agriculture to become even dryer (as happened with Australia some time ago).
So while it's easy to blame meat, vegetable growers are just as guilty. If meat is evil, vegetables aren't far behind.
Alas, no. You get a lot more available food calories per gallon of water when growing vegetables (the exact amount depends on the crop; there is substantial variation) than when raising animals, with cows being particularly demanding. The trick to raising animals efficiently is to feed them on things that people can't eat (e.g., grass) as there's a lot of places where you can't use high-efficiency food crops because of environmental conditions. (In my part of the world, sheep work well because they tolerate the climate and rough-grazing available. Wheat would just rot in the ground before harvest.)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
In the US much of the agriculture happens in flyover country. These areas probably don't have that much sewage. Sure, they have it, but you need a LOT of water to irrigate a field.
They don't have much _human_ sewage. The amount of farm animal sewage that's generated is staggering. it's also generally produced close to plant-producing farms.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
A 20-30 foot deep pool comprising 2% of arable land would be prohibitively expensive. In areas with a high water table, you'll have to keep it from caving in; also you are going to need to blast rock in many parts of the country, and the pool is going to have to be lined with something expensive (either concrete or a thick plastic liner). You'll also need to dredge that thing on a regular basis, as ag runoff is rather silt-laden.
Theoretically possible? Sure.
But "an easy way to help"? Nope.
"The underlying corporate psychopathic distortion, is there is a lack of water."
Corporate? Water is typically produced by local municipalities, not corporations. Hence, your screed turns to mud. And for fuck's sake, put away the Poli-Sci 101 talk.
"...where is the government mandated shift..." "Where are the government demands" "The war here is..."
Socio-political bullshit.
Not sure if that was a typo, but the researchers came to the opposite conclusion.
From the first article:
His grammar was confusing, but that's what he meant. To summarize: grass fed good (and tastier), grain fed bad.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Other people who don't want to live, work, or otherwise cooperate with you, but want your water? And a significant percentage of them want to kill you?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Water is typically produced by local municipalities
Except in all the places where it is not. In the Western United States, much of the water comes from one of two large sources, and piped around to various areas via aqueducts. Access to it is controlled by the federal or state governments and local access to that water supplies are not ultimately up to local officials. In these cases, all local municipalities do it treat water and handle the "last mile" distribution.
Here in central CA, farmers get their water supplies heavily subsidized, especially on the West side of the valley where, if it were not for the CA aqueduct system, the land would be barren. For the last two years, I've had to endure rantings and ravings of local water interests around here blaming Sacramento for "stealing" "their" water.
The GP's point about corporate involvement is spot on. It is corporate water interests (wealthy farmers here in Central CA) who lobby politicians to give them sweet deals on water access. Meanwhile, us plebs pay inflated costs on our household water usage to make up for those subsidies.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
If you have a disagreement with the post's claims, make your argument. If you find the language unclear, ask for clarification. If you think there are unreasonable insinuations being made, call them out. That's what I intend to do with your post.
To me, the above complaint doesn't look like a rational problem with the argument: it looks like an ideological problem with where you think it's coming from. Perhaps you think all academics are out-of-touch elites whose expertise should therefore be disregarded. Perhaps you think poli-sci students are liberty-hating "liberals" (according to the warped American definition of the word). If so, foolish caricaturing and stereotyping only looks good if you're preaching to the choir. It has no bearing on the validity of either argument.
Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so. I'm just sick of reasoned debate being jettisoned for ideological reasons of tribal identity and taste.