I saw [this](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html) article today which mentions that 55% of water usage in the west is used for livestock feed. Is there a reason we can’t grow this feed in different parts of the country with more abundant water?
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There are a few other factors as to why AZ and parts of the desert west are used this way.
Length of growing season- Alfalfa is a perennial crop fed to dairy and beef cattle. Great protein source and fiber for cattle, and since it’s perennial you don’t have to go through the expense of planting it every year and all the field prep associated with that. With places like AZ and Southern California having 10-11 months of good growing season for alfalfa, that means they can get more than the typical 2-3 cuttings off of an alfalfa field that people up north do. The arid climate also increases the quality of the hay because it is allowed to naturally dry out after cutting without heavy dew or rain spoiling it.
Animal Health- for many of the same reasons people move to the climate, animals actually can survive on less feed in these climates. Farther north, it’s cold more months of the year and animals need to burn extra calories just to stay warm. Those are tons of feed that don’t go towards producing milk or beef and are just lost.
Demand- if you look at the Colorado river basin and California’s Central Valley, there are several different huge metropolitan areas within a couple hours of most of these farms. If you go east, it can be 500-750+ miles before you hit other areas capable of producing large quantities of feed. All the milk, egg, and meat demands of these metro areas draws in more local production because the freight from farther east would be very costly and logistically hard to keep up year round. The cities themselves are what cause the land to be used in this way. I can almost guarantee you the first farmers/ ranchers in these areas didn’t plan to be irrigated dairy farmers. Demand in the area drove prices for fresh milk and eggs up high enough that governments and the farmers were incentivized enough to build the infrastructure for all of this irrigation and start farming the desert in order to meet demands of the masses. A bit of the chicken or the egg conundrum, pun intended 😂
In a direct answer to your question of why can’t we grow livestock feed in areas with more abundant water, the answer is, we do! I would say that the percentage of crop grown to feed animals in the plains, midwest, and eastern parts of the country that receive more natural rainfall is not as far off the 55% as what the article states about the arid west. Ethanol production and soybean oil production in the Midwest produce high quality animal feeds as a byproduct of the main process, and often times the byproduct is actually the most profitable part of the process. These feeds are fed locally, as well as shipped globally in bulk.
I could go on, but that’s just the short end of what I can explain, as a farmer myself. Personally, it blows my mind how much of what I personally farm goes to feeding birds for entertainment of people in cities, rather than the people themselves. It’s all supply and demand, and we have to follow that to make a living.
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