How Much Water Does It Take to Produce 1 Pound of Beef

Facts about water use and other environmental impacts of beefiness product in Canada

Yes, it takes water to produce beef, but in the 2.v meg years since our ancestors started eating meat, we haven't lost a drop yet.

Based on the most recent scientific discipline and extensive calculations of a wide range of factors, it is estimated that the pasture-to-plate journey of this important protein source requires about one,910 U.s. gallons per pound (or fifteen,944 litres per kilogram) of water to become Canadian beef to the dinner table. That's what is known as the "h2o footprint" of beef production.

That may sound similar a lot, but the fact is information technology doesn't matter what crop or beast is being produced; nutrient 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. H2o is recycled – sometimes in a very complex biological process— and it all comes dorsum to be used again.

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

Researchers at the Academy of Manitoba and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Lethbridge found that in 2011, producing each unit of measurement of Canadian beefiness used 17% less water than thirty years prior. ⁽¹⁾ It besides 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 dorsum to the beef manufacture — agriculture in general and beef producers specifically have oft been targeted as existence high consumers, fifty-fifty "wasters" of water, taking its cost on the environment. However, there's a lot more to this story – information technology'southward non equally unproblematic as 1,910 gallons of h2o being used for each pound of edible beefiness produced.

If the beefiness animal itself merely needs about 10 gallons of h2o per twenty-four hours to function, what accounts for the residuum of the water (footprint) required for that 16 oz steak? Oft in research terms the water measured in the total water footprint is broken into three color categories. The footprint includes an estimate of how much surface and footing (blueish) water is used to water cattle, make fertilizer, irrigate pastures and crops, process beefiness, etc. And and then there is a measure of how much pelting (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 bluish, green and grey numbers for cattle produced throughout the world produces a global "water footprint" for beef. It is worth noting that more than 95% of the h2o used in beef production is green water — it is going to rain and snow whether cattle are on pasture or not. And information technology is important to remember of all water used i way or another information technology all gets recycled.

If you lot wait at the life cycle of a beef animal from birth to burger or pasture to pot-roast, the 1,910 gallons per pound is accounting for wet needed to grow the grass it will eat on pasture and for the hay, grain and other feeds it will consume equally information technology is finished to marketplace weight. It also reflects the h2o used in the processing and packaging needed to get a whole beast assembled into retail cuts and portion sizes for the consumer. Every step of the process requires water.

Since the objective is to produce poly peptide, couldn't we just abound more pulse crops such equally peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas and even so meet poly peptide requirements, use less h2o and do good the surroundings? Let's accept a look at why that theory doesn't hold truthful.

H2o is just part of a very big picture

First of all, whether it is an annual crop (such as wheat, canola or peas) or some type of permanent or perennial forage stand (like alfalfa or bromegrass) consumed past cattle, all crops need moisture to abound. (And as we talk about dissimilar crops in the next few paragraphs, it is important to notation in that location are two main types. Most field crops such equally wheat, barley and peas are almanac plants. They are more often than not seeded in the spring, get harvested in the fall and and so 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 volition remain productive for at least two or three years and oftentimes for many years earlier they need to be reseeded.)

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

Almanac pulse crops (like peas, beans and lentils) use more water than grass. For dry pea production, for example, it takes most 414,562 gallons of water per acre of land to grow peas. Compare that to full Canadian beef production of about 2.46 million pounds of beef produced on about 57 1000000 acres land to grow the pasture, forage and other feed for the cattle herd, and it works out to about 78,813 gallons per acre of country used for beefiness production.

This means that non every acre beef cattle are raised on is suited to ingather product . Dry peas need more than five times as much water per acre (414,652 ÷ 78,813 = 5.3) than the grass does. Much of the country used to heighten forage for beef cattle doesn't receive adequate wet or have the correct soil weather to back up crop production, but it tin can produce types of grass that thrives in drier conditions.

Beef industry plays an important diverse office

The fact is, today's beef cattle were not the first bovid species to ready foot on what we now consider Canadian agronomical land. For thousands and thousands of years herds of every bit many as 30 one thousand thousand bison roamed beyond North America, including Canada, eating forages and depositing nutrients (manure) back into the soil and living in ecological harmony with thousands of constitute and animal species.

Today, the five million head of beefiness cattle being raised on Canadian farms tin't duplicate that natural system, but as they are managed properly they do provide a valuable contribution to the surroundings just as the bison did.  Beef cows and the pastures they employ help to preserve Canada's shrinking natural grassland ecosystems by providing plant and habitat biodiversity for migratory birds and endangered species, equally well as habitat for a host of upland animal species. Properly managed grazing systems also benefit wetland preservation, while the diverseness of plants all help to capture and store carbon from the air in the soil.

Where practise cattle fit?

Forages (pastures and harvested roughage) account for approximately 80 per cent of the feed used by beef cattle in Canada. Nearly a tertiary (31 per cent) of Canada's agricultural state is pasture. This land is non suited for annual crop production, merely information technology tin can grow grass, which needs to be grazed by animals to remain growing and productive.

Canada's beef herd is primarily located in the prairies. The southern prairies are drought-decumbent, and the more than northerly growing seasons are too curt for many crops. Central and Eastern Canada generally have higher rainfall and longer growing seasons than the prairies, just not all this farmland is suitable for crop production either. Much of this state is too boggy, stony, or bushy to allow cultivation, but it tin 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, simply cattle take a specialized microbial population in their stomach (rumen) that allows them to assimilate fiber, make use of the nutrients, and convert them into high-quality protein that humans can digest. Beef cattle production allows us to produce nutritious poly peptide on state that isn't environmentally or climatically suited to cultivation and crop product.

Water cycles

Simply focusing on h2o apply per pound of product ignores the h2o bicycle. The h2o cycle is important – humans, wheat, corn, lentils, poultry, pork, eggs, milk, forages and beef product all use h2o,but they don't apply it upwards . They aren't sponges that endlessly blot water. Nearly all the water that people or cattle consume ends up back in the environment through manure, sweat, or water vapor.

Nosotros know that most of the h2o plants take up from the soil is transpired back into the air. Like urban center water, the h2o that beef processing facilities accept out of the river at one stop of the constitute is treated and returns to the same river at the other end of the plant. New technologies to recycle and re-use water can reduce the corporeality of h2o needed for beef processing by 90 per cent.

Storing greenhouse gases

Plants — pasture and hayland, all crops really — help to capture and shop carbon. Plants take carbon dioxide out of the temper, incorporate the carbon into their roots, stems, leaves, flowers and seeds, and release oxygen back into the temper. Because perennial plants (well-nigh hay and pastureland) alive for many years, they develop an all-encompassing root organisation which volition 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 past these plants remains in the soil rather than beingness released back into the atmosphere. Every bit a consequence, numerous studies have documented that grasslands, which remain salubrious with grazing cattle, have more carbon stored in the soil than adjacent annual cropland.

Pastures protect the soil

When land is cultivated to produce almanac crops such equally wheat, barley, canola, peas and lentils, the disturbance of soil releases soil carbon to the temper. In that location is also the risk of soil erosion. In Western Canada, our predecessors learned this the hard style. Not knowing any better about the affect of cultivation of fields to produce crops, serious losses occurred across Canada —especially notable on the prairies in the 'Dirty Thirties'. Cultivation led to the loss of 40-fifty per cent of the organic carbon from prairie soils, and sixty-lxx per cent from central and eastern Canadian soils. But we learned from those mistakes and today, near annual crops are grown nether reduced or no-till cropping systems — crops are seeded with minimal soil disturbance. Different commercial fertilizers, using manure as a fertilizer also replenishes organic thing 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 annual crop production.

Soil health improves

Getting dorsum to the water topic, aside from benefits noted earlier, these permanent grasslands and perennial pastures in fact help to conserve moisture as roots and plant matter aid to better soil construction and help rain and snow melt percolate downwardly through the soil. That's known as water infiltration. As a general rule, when lands are left undisturbed, only x per cent of precipitation runs off the land, xl per cent evaporates and 50 per cent goes down into the soil to enter both shallow and deep groundwater reserves. When soils are disturbed, h2o infiltration is reduced.

Information technology'due south not just dead roots that provide environmental benefits. Because perennial forages aren't cultivated, and often grow in dry out weather, they grow extensive root systems in their search for moisture.

An instance of one important plant species is the legume family. At that place are varieties of legumes that brand excellent pasture and hay crops. They are known as fodder legumes and near 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. Nigh annual pulse crops are used for man food, but even these produce by-products (east.g. stems, pods, shrivelled seeds, etc.) that are non edible for humans simply that cattle tin convert to loftier quality, nutritious protein.

What'south interesting about 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 too have a natural power to produce an of import soil nutrient known as nitrogen. All legumes can "prepare" or capture nitrogen from the air and convert information technology into soil nitrogen that can improve soil fertility. Forage legumes tin set up upwardly to twice every bit much nitrogen per acre in the soil as almanac legume (or pulse) crop.

Lands that are prone to periodic flooding or drought do good from the permanent plant cover that forages provide. The roots and vegetation keep the soil in identify and so that it doesn't erode, launder away in a flood or blow abroad during a drought.

Home on the range

Again, when yous enquire the question, why don't nosotros just grow more annual crops, remember that cattle and soil aren't the but living things afflicted when grassland is converted to farmland. Grasslands besides provide habitat for minor and large mammals, hawks, nesting birds, songbirds and pollinating insects. Converting natural grassland to crop product results in considerable biodiversity loss, as the native plants, insects, birds, and wild fauna that require undisturbed natural habitats do not thrive almost every bit well under annual cropping systems.

Most of Canada'south native grasslands have 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 so maintaining grasslands and perennial pastures provides a huge ecological do good.

Crops and cattle go well together

Information technology is non an all or nothing scenario — crops, cattle, and grasslands need each other. For example, canola crops yield and ripen amend when they are pollinated past bees. Because an entire field is seeded at the same time, all the canola plants flower at the same fourth dimension, and each plant only flowers for 2 or three weeks. Grasslands provide a home for a wide range of plants that all flower at unlike times. That means bees accept lots of plants to help 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.

Annual crops can too serve double duty. Canadian farmers produced well-nigh eight million tonnes of barley in 2018. A portion of that was seeded to what'due south known as malting barley varieties that produce barley suitable for the brewing manufacture. If the grain doesn't meet specifications for brewing standards (for weather-related reasons, for case), it can still be used as adept quality livestock feed. Information technology's a similar situation with the 32 meg tonnes of wheat produced annually. If it doesn't see milling, export or other industrial finish-use standards, it can be used as good quality feed for cattle.

All part of a system

To repeat, yes it takes water to produce beef, but on a broader scale, beef cattle are a vital office of an integrated organization. Cattle demand grass, grass needs grazing to remain vital, grass protects the soil, salubrious soil helps to conserve moisture, plants provide feed and habitat for a myriad of species, grains not suitable for the human being-food marketplace make splendid livestock feed, cattle manure provides a valuable natural fertilizer to pastures and crops, and the whole organization results in production of a high quality, healthy protein source for humans.

All food systems rely on h2o, but the most important affair to remember is the water is not used up. All h2o ultimately gets recycled.

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