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The Issue Of Water

By Tom Lynch-Staunton – Canadian Cattlemen’s Association

It was a perfect opportunity to talk about water use in the beef industry including some of the great things we do to ensure secure clean water for both cattle and humans.

Unfortunately, however, the conversation in the media will tend to focus solely on water usage with respect to producing 1 kg of food. Depending on the author or the intention of the article, we have seen the range of water use stated from as low as 200 litres per kg of beef produced to 15,000 litres of water per kg of beef produced. Although this figure is important, it doesn’t always tell the whole story. Often these figures are used in the argument to not eat meat because there is a perception that it takes enormous amounts of water to produce 1kg of product, and that this water is lost or it disappears and will never be used again.

The National Beef Sustainability Assessment commissioned by the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) determined that in Canada it takes 631 litres of water to produce 1 kg of packed boneless beef (delivered and consumed).


“We still need to do our best to conserve clean water and use it as best we can.”

 

If we consider this number on a live weight, it drops to 231 litres per kg of live weight. As we all know, cattle are not drinking and storing this much, in fact they consume about 45 litres per day, which, of course is eventually recycled back onto the ground, or through us when we eat beef. So where does all the water in these figures come from? Most of it is the irrigated water needed to grow the feed for the cattle, but it also includes water needed for processing, packaging, transport, general on farm water use, and even includes water in beef that is wasted or thrown away (about 10% of all beef produced).

Our water use is relatively low in Canada because we don’t irrigate many feed crops. Many times, the very high water usage figures will also include “green” water, which accounts for all the rainfall on the crop or pasture that cattle are grazing. This is how a figure can get up to the 15,000 litre level. Unfortunately, many people don’t understand the rain that falls on this land does so regardless of whether a cow is there to eat the grass or not. If cows are there, they are simply moving the water contained in the grass through their body, storing a small amount in their tissue, and putting it back on the land.

Many people compare water usage in beef to other foods, especially vegetables on a per kg of food basis. However, if we can change the conversation to start talking on a per calorie, or even better, per nutrient basis, beef may be perceived differently. Growing green peppers for example may take less water (depending on where/how they are grown), but 1kg of green peppers simply don’t contain the equivalent calories or nutrients that are stored in 1 kg of beef.Reynold Bergen, Science Director at the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) recently wrote an interesting blog article comparing the water use impact of certain diets, and that a recommended diet in reduced meat consumption resulted in more energy and water use, concluding that “per calorie meat, especially beef, produces more GHGs than other foods, but uses less water or energy per calorie than many other foods.”

When we talk about water with the public, we shouldn’t necessarily avoid talking about usage figures because they are important, but reiterate the simple truth that water cycles and doesn’t simply disappear. It moves through our animals, the feed our animals eat, through us, and back into the environment to be naturally filtered and used again. We can also talk about the great things we are doing to ensure our water sources remain clean, through tools like off stream watering systems and riparian fencing, and our filtering systems (such as grasslands and pasture lands) are healthy and functioning.

All the above being said, we still need to do our best to conserve clean water and use it as best we can. We are lucky in Canada in that we have abundant supplies of clean water, however we can also be restricted due to drought and other conditions. Because water cycles, it is not destroyed, just moved around our environment, ourselves, and our animals. The conversation should really be about the energy needed to move water through the cycle – some of that energy happens through the ecosystem (plants, soils, evaporation, rain, etc.) and some of that energy is used by us (electricity, fossil fuels, etc.) to ensure water can be used again.

Lastly, one of the best things our consumers can do, to ensure water (and thus energy) is used as efficiently as possible, is to reduce meat waste. If we can plan and consume everything we buy, we can ensure that the energy to get that food (and water) to our plate wasn’t wasted, and used as efficiently as possible.

Source:Canada Meat Business


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