Beef Driving Western Droughts
An Environmental Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Center for Biological Diversity
March 2020

A quarter of all water consumed in the United States goes to irrigating feed crops for cattle.

Image - Bob Nichols Flickr

Beef requires more water to produce than any other food, largely due to the amount needed to grow feed crops. That water has to come from somewhere. And in much of the western United States that means the Colorado River, home to several threatened and endangered species.

New research has found that a quarter of all water consumed in the United States goes to irrigating feed crops for cattle. But in the West, cattle feed uses one-third of the water consumed and more than half of that in the Colorado River Basin.

River depletion from irrigating feed crops puts more than 50 species at risk of extinction and has been linked to more than 700 instances of fish species disappearing from local watersheds.

It's not just feed crops that pit beef production against riparian wildlife: A new Center report shows that cattle grazing is causing widespread and severe damage on Arizona's Verde River.

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