How Much Water Is Required to Produce One Pound of Beef

Facts nigh water apply and other environmental impacts of beef production in Canada

Aye, it takes h2o to produce beefiness, simply in the ii.v million years since our ancestors started eating meat, we haven't lost a drop notwithstanding.

Based on the most recent scientific discipline and extensive calculations of a wide range of factors, it is estimated that the pasture-to-plate journeying of this important protein source requires nigh 1,910 US gallons per pound (or 15,944 litres per kilogram) of water to get Canadian beefiness to the dinner table. That'south what is known equally the "water footprint" of beefiness production.

That may sound similar a lot, only the fact is it doesn't matter what ingather or animal is being produced; food production takes water. Sometimes it sounds like a lot of water, but h2o that is used to produce a feed crop or cattle is not lost. Water is recycled – sometimes in a very complex biological procedure— and information technology all comes dorsum to exist used over again.

Water requirements vary with animal size and temperature. But on average, a 1250 pound (567 kg) beef steer merely drinks near 10 gallons (about 38 litres) of water per day to support its normal metabolic function. That's pretty reasonable considering the average person in Canada uses nearly 59 gallons (223 litres) per twenty-four hours for consumption and hygiene. And according to the most contempo Statistics Canada data, Canada'south combined household and industrial use of water is most 37.9 billion cubic meters annually (a cubic meter equals about 220 gallons or 1000 litres of h2o) — we humans are a water-consuming bunch.

Researchers at the University of Manitoba and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Lethbridge found that in 2011, producing each unit of Canadian beefiness used 17% less water than xxx years prior. ⁽ⁱ⁾ Information technology likewise required 29% less breeding stock, 27% fewer harvested cattle and 24% less land, and produced 15% less greenhouse gases to produce each pound or kilogram in 2011 compared to 1981.⁽²⁾

But back to the beef industry — agriculture in general and beef producers specifically accept often been targeted every bit beingness high consumers, even "wasters" of h2o, taking its toll on the surround. However, there's a lot more than to this story – information technology's not every bit simple every bit one,910 gallons of water existence used for each pound of edible beef produced.

If the beef animal itself only needs nigh 10 gallons of water per twenty-four hour period to function, what accounts for the residuum of the h2o (footprint) required for that 16 oz steak? Often in enquiry terms the water measured in the total water footprint is broken into three colour categories. The footprint includes an estimate of how much surface and ground (blue) water is used to water cattle, make fertilizer, gargle pastures and crops, process beef, etc. And and then at that place is a mensurate of how much rain (green) water falls on pasture and feed crops, and finally how much water is needed to dilute runoff from feed crops, pastures and cattle operations (grey water). Calculation these blueish, light-green and grey numbers for cattle produced throughout the earth produces a global "water footprint" for beef. It is worth noting that more than 95% of the water used in beef production is green water — it is going to pelting and snowfall whether cattle are on pasture or not. And it is important to remember of all h2o used one manner or another it all gets recycled.

If yous look at the life wheel of a beef beast from birth to burger or pasture to pot-roast, the 1,910 gallons per pound is accounting for moisture needed to abound the grass it will eat on pasture and for the hay, grain and other feeds information technology will eat as it is finished to marketplace weight. Information technology also reflects the water used in the processing and packaging needed to get a whole brute assembled into retail cuts and portion sizes for the consumer. Every pace of the procedure requires h2o.

Since the objective is to produce protein, couldn't we only grow more pulse crops such as peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas and still come across protein requirements, utilise less water and benefit the environment? Permit'southward take a look at why that theory doesn't hold true.

Water is just part of a very large picture

First of all, whether it is an annual crop (such equally wheat, canola or peas) or some blazon of permanent or perennial forage stand up (like alfalfa or bromegrass) consumed by cattle, all crops demand moisture to grow. (And equally we talk nearly different crops in the next few paragraphs, it is of import to note there are two chief types. Well-nigh field crops such every bit wheat, barley and peas are almanac plants. They are generally seeded in the bound, become harvested in the fall then die off as wintertime sets in. Most pasture and forage crops are permanent or perennial plants. Native or natural grass species seemingly live forever, while tame or domestic forage species will remain productive for at least two or iii years and often for many years before they need to exist reseeded.)

Both annual crops and forages are of import in Canadian agriculture. Simply, when people wonder why we just don't produce more establish-based protein by growing  more peas, beans and lentils, it'south not merely a matter of swapping out every acre of pasture to produce a field of peas. Information technology's a matter of playing to your strengths — recognize the potential of the land for its best intended purpose.

Annual pulse crops (like peas, beans and lentils) utilize more water than grass. For dry out pea product, for example, it takes about 414,562 gallons of water per acre of land to grow peas. Compare that to full Canadian beef production of most 2.46 million pounds of beef produced on well-nigh 57 million acres land to abound the pasture, forage and other feed for the cattle herd, and it works out to virtually 78,813 gallons per acre of land used for beef product.

This ways that not every acre beefiness cattle are raised on is suited to crop production . Dry peas need more than v times as much h2o per acre (414,652 ÷ 78,813 = 5.iii) than the grass does. Much of the state used to raise fodder for beef cattle doesn't receive adequate wet or take the right soil conditions to support ingather production, but it can produce types of grass that thrives in drier conditions.

Beef industry plays an of import diverse office

The fact is, today's beefiness cattle were not the beginning bovid species to ready foot on what nosotros now consider Canadian agricultural land. For thousands and thousands of years herds of as many equally thirty meg bison roamed across North America, including Canada, eating forages and depositing nutrients (manure) back into the soil and living in ecological harmony with thousands of institute and animate being species.

Today, the five million head of beef cattle beingness raised on Canadian farms can't indistinguishable that natural system, just as they are managed properly they practise provide a valuable contribution to the environs merely as the bison did.  Beef cows and the pastures they utilize assistance to preserve Canada's shrinking natural grassland ecosystems by providing plant and habitat biodiversity for migratory birds and endangered species, as well as habitat for a host of upland creature species. Properly managed grazing systems also benefit wetland preservation, while the diversity of plants all help to capture and shop carbon from the air in the soil.

Where practise cattle fit?

Forages (pastures and harvested roughage) account for approximately fourscore per cent of the feed used by beefiness cattle in Canada. Near a 3rd (31 per cent) of Canada'southward agricultural state is pasture. This land is not suited for annual crop production, but it can grow grass, which needs to be grazed by animals to remain growing and productive.

Canada'southward beef herd is primarily located in the prairies. The southern prairies are drought-decumbent, and the more than northerly growing seasons are also brusque for many crops. Primal and Eastern Canada generally have higher rainfall and longer growing seasons than the prairies, only non all this farmland is suitable for crop product either. Much of this land is besides boggy, stony, or bushy to allow cultivation, just it can grow grass. Grass that cattle live on for near of their lives.

Grass and other range and pasture plants contain fiber that people can't digest, but cattle have a specialized microbial population in their stomach (rumen) that allows them to digest fiber, brand use of the nutrients, and convert them into high-quality protein that humans can assimilate. Beef cattle production allows united states to produce nutritious poly peptide on land that isn't environmentally or climatically suited to cultivation and crop product.

Water cycles

Only focusing on water use per pound of production ignores the h2o cycle. The h2o bicycle is important – humans, wheat, corn, lentils, poultry, pork, eggs, milk, forages and beefiness production all apply h2o,merely they don't apply information technology up . They aren't sponges that endlessly absorb water. Nigh all the water that people or cattle swallow ends upwardly dorsum in the environment through manure, sweat, or water vapor.

Nosotros know that well-nigh of the water plants have upward from the soil is transpired back into the air. Like urban center water, the water that beef processing facilities take out of the river at one end of the establish is treated and returns to the same river at the other end of the establish. New technologies to recycle and re-use water tin can reduce the amount of water needed for beef processing by xc per cent.

Storing greenhouse gases

Plants — pasture and hayland, all crops really — assistance to capture and store carbon. Plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, comprise the carbon into their roots, stems, leaves, flowers and seeds, and release oxygen dorsum into the atmosphere. Considering perennial plants (nigh hay and pastureland) alive for many years, they develop an extensive root organization which will eventually decay and become part of the soil carbon. Because these permanent or perennial pastures are not cultivated and reseeded every year, the carbon sequestered by these plants remains in the soil rather than being released back into the atmosphere. As a event, numerous studies have documented that grasslands, which remain healthy with grazing cattle, have more carbon stored in the soil than next annual cropland.

Pastures protect the soil

When state is cultivated to produce annual crops such every bit wheat, barley, canola, peas and lentils, the disturbance of soil releases soil carbon to the atmosphere. There is also the take a chance of soil erosion. In Western Canada, our predecessors learned this the difficult way. Not knowing whatsoever improve most the impact of tillage of fields to produce crops, serious losses occurred across Canada —peculiarly notable on the prairies in the 'Dirty Thirties'. Cultivation led to the loss of 40-50 per cent of the organic carbon from prairie soils, and 60-70 per cent from fundamental and eastern Canadian soils. Simply we learned from those mistakes and today, most annual crops are grown under reduced or no-till cropping systems — crops are seeded with minimal soil disturbance. Unlike commercial fertilizers, using manure as a fertilizer also replenishes organic matter in these soils.

Maintaining permanent grassland and perennial pastures drastically reduces the risk of soil loss due to wind and water erosion, and keeps stored carbon stored in the soil. The point is that cattle have an excellent fit on productive agricultural land non suited to almanac crop product.

Soil health improves

Getting back to the water topic, aside from benefits noted before, these permanent grasslands and perennial pastures in fact assist to conserve moisture as roots and plant matter help to improve soil construction and help rain and snowfall melt percolate down through the soil. That'southward known as water infiltration. Equally a general rule, when lands are left undisturbed, only x per cent of precipitation runs off the land, 40 per cent evaporates and fifty per cent goes down into the soil to enter both shallow and deep groundwater reserves. When soils are disturbed, water infiltration is reduced.

It's not simply expressionless roots that provide ecology benefits. Because perennial forages aren't cultivated, and often abound in dry weather condition, they grow extensive root systems in their search for wet.

An example of 1 important institute species is the legume family. In that location are varieties of legumes that make excellent pasture and hay crops. They are known as forage legumes and about are perennial. But there is another whole branch of the legume family unit that humans consume at the dinner table. These legumes are known as pulse crops and that includes, peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas. Most almanac pulse crops are used for human nutrient, just fifty-fifty these produce past-products (e.g. stems, pods, shrivelled seeds, etc.) that are not edible for humans only that cattle can convert to high quality, nutritious poly peptide.

What'due south interesting most legumes is how they benefit the soil. For instance, forage legumes like alfalfa develop roots that penetrate 53 to 63 per cent deeper into the soil than chickpeas, lentils, and other pulse crops. All legumes also have a natural power to produce an important soil nutrient known as nitrogen. All legumes can "prepare" or capture nitrogen from the air and convert it into soil nitrogen that can meliorate soil fertility. Fodder legumes can fix up to twice equally much nitrogen per acre in the soil every bit annual legume (or pulse) crop.

Lands that are prone to periodic flooding or drought benefit from the permanent plant cover that forages provide. The roots and vegetation keep the soil in place and then that it doesn't erode, wash away in a inundation or blow away during a drought.

Home on the range

Again, when you ask the question, why don't we simply grow more annual crops, retrieve that cattle and soil aren't the simply living things affected when grassland is converted to farmland. Grasslands also provide habitat for small-scale and large mammals, hawks, nesting birds, songbirds and pollinating insects. Converting natural grassland to crop production results in considerable biodiversity loss, as the native plants, insects, birds, and wildlife that require undisturbed natural habitats do non thrive nearly besides under annual cropping systems.

Most of Canada's native grasslands accept already been converted to crop production. This has led to considerable population losses in some species, with up to 87 per cent population declines among some grassland bird species. And then maintaining grasslands and perennial pastures provides a huge ecological benefit.

Crops and cattle go well together

It is non an all or nix scenario — crops, cattle, and grasslands need each other. For example, canola crops yield and ripen better when they are pollinated by bees. Because an unabridged field is seeded at the same time, all the canola plants flower at the aforementioned time, and each plant only flowers for two or iii weeks. Grasslands provide a abode for a wide range of plants that all flower at different times. That means bees take lots of plants to assistance back up them during long periods when annual crops aren't flowering. Over 140 bee species are resident in Canadian grasslands; bee abundance and diversity are positively related to the presence of grasslands.

Almanac crops can also serve double duty. Canadian farmers produced well-nigh 8 million tonnes of barley in 2018. A portion of that was seeded to what's known as malting barley varieties that produce barley suitable for the brewing manufacture. If the grain doesn't meet specifications for brewing standards (for atmospheric condition-related reasons, for example), information technology can all the same be used every bit good quality livestock feed. It's a similar situation with the 32 million tonnes of wheat produced annually. If it doesn't meet milling, export or other industrial finish-utilise standards, it tin be used equally good quality feed for cattle.

All office of a system

To repeat, yep it takes water to produce beef, but on a broader scale, beef cattle are a vital office of an integrated arrangement. Cattle need grass, grass needs grazing to remain vital, grass protects the soil, healthy soil helps to conserve moisture, plants provide feed and habitat for a myriad of species, grains non suitable for the human-food market place brand excellent livestock feed, cattle manure provides a valuable natural fertilizer to pastures and crops, and the whole system results in product of a high quality, salubrious protein source for humans.

All food systems rely on water, but the nearly important matter to call up is the h2o is not used upwardly. All water ultimately gets recycled.

Click here to subscribe to the BCRC Blog and receive email notifications when new content is posted.

The sharing or reprinting of BCRC Blog articles is welcome and encouraged. Please provide acknowledgement to the Beef Cattle Research Council, list the website address, www.BeefResearch.ca, and permit us know you chose to share the article past emailing us at info@beefresearch.ca.

We welcome your questions, comments and suggestions. Contact the states directly or generate public discussion by posting your thoughts beneath.

schreiberoblem1944.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.beefresearch.ca/blog/cattle-feed-water-use/

Share this post