Cattle and water use
For years now I have been seeing posts and hearing comments from students about the enormous amount of (drinking) water used by cattle. Studies propose that it takes 12,000 gallons to produce 1 pound of beef (or 100,000 liters to produce 1 kilogram, see this article). These studies however are based on cattle consuming hay and grain. Do cattle consume hay or grain in their natural environment? No. It is only because meat production has become an industry that it has become environmentally unfriendly.
Happy cows today.
Anything that is an “industry” becomes unhealthy, unnatural, inefficient and resource intensive. We graze our cows on pasture at Maungaraeeda. Our cows are actually improving our pasture, just by grazing, eating the grass, digesting it and pooping it back out. We are currently running 6 cows. Their food is produced by nature and helped along by the cows’ own fertilising of the pastures. We do not water the pasture at all, nature does that for us when it rains. The cows drink maybe 100 liters of water per day (all 6 combined, with 2 of them lactating), which ends up being around 17 liters per cow per day. The studies calculated the amount over a 2 year period, which is 730 days. So over that period of time one of our cows would drink 12,410 liters of water in total. If we get around 180kg of meat from one of our cows (that’s about average for a good size 2 year old cow at our place), this would mean the cow would have needed 68.9 liters of water per kilogram of beef. This equals to 18.2 gallons per kilo or around 8.3 gallons per pound. That is a huge difference! Especially as on the same page it claims that potatoes take 60 gallons of water per pound to produce…
Happy cows in their new cell!
Pasture fed beef is therefore not only a more humane way of growing beef, it is also better for the environment in water consumption and, if properly managed, can actually improve and build the soil. Rather than not eating beef altogether, it would possibly be better for the planet to support pasture fed beef growers.
©2016 Zaia; permeco.org, incorporating Permaculture Research Institute Sunshine Coast, simplicity, permaculture, self reliance, self sufficiency, sustainability, food, health and homesteading, Cattle and their use of water
Author: Zaia Kendall
Zaia grew up in a family of musicians in Holland, and has a background in top sport (snow skiing) and web development and design. She co-founded the PRI Luganville and PRI Sunshine Coast Inc (now PermEco Inc.) with Tom, and runs the “invisible structures”, like finances, business administration, website design and maintenance, writes articles and records and edits videos. She assists Tom in running the Kendall Permaculture Farm and supervising other volunteers. She is an active member of several musical projects and bands, involved in community music and runs percussion and marimba workshops, is the percussion leader for the Woodford Folk Festival People’s Orchestra and composes as well as plays music. She is passionate about community music and loves seeing people discover that they can play!
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That was quite an illumination bit of Maths.
Glad you have happy cows 😊.
It’s refreshing to see someone actually acknowledging the true water requirements of cattle for a change! Having worked in beef production for most of my adult life it gets frustrating to see misleading figures painting a nasty picture of beef production supposedly negatively affecting the natural environment. Especially since all of my experience is on pasture grazing! Thanks Zaia 🙂