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
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.
I think that’s misleading because although livestock don’t directly use a lot of water…
Irrigation of crops is the largest offstream use of water in the CRB, averaging 85% of total offstream use
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.
