California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

Re:California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal ... by marricks on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @06:15PM (#9307338)

The figures I found put it more at 1 gallon per almond. They aren't even the largest culprit, yet they get talked about so much. No one seems to want to mention the biggest spenders in terms of water, meat and dairy. This handy article, http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/from-lettuce-to-beef-wh... puts into comparison water taken up by each food source. Meat and dairy are way up there.

If you want to compare by source in California, animal agriculture takes up 47% of California's water, far more than any crop or other source, http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ft... (take a look at page 3 of the pdf).

Lets get our priorities straight here, lets stop talking about almonds (mentioned 24+ times in this thread) and start talking meat and dairy (mentioned twice in this thread...).

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Re:California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal ... by restalis on Thursday April 02, 2015 @10:51AM (#9311001)

The thing is, the plant agriculture, besides its main products also has byproducts. Let's say you grow corn. Besides the grains there is the rest of the plant that although consumes water to grow, does not have much use in the end but as fodder. You may protest about the meat and dairy when water is consumed on specialized fodder products, but otherwise that meat and dairy can simply contribute to increasing the efficiency of water use.

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Re:California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal ... by demiraven on Wednesday April 01, 2015 @06:47PM (#9307513)

The pacinst.org document is great. Thank you for the link. Your point is spot on about animal agriculture, and well-supported by the PDF.

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