Pounds of Food to Make 1 Pound of Beef

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

Yes, it takes water to produce beef, only in the 2.five million years since our ancestors started eating meat, we haven't lost a drib yet.

Based on the almost recent science and all-encompassing calculations of a wide range of factors, information technology is estimated that the pasture-to-plate journey of this of import 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's what is known as the "water footprint" of beef product.

That may audio similar a lot, merely the fact is information technology doesn't affair what crop or animal is being produced; nutrient production takes water. Sometimes it sounds like a lot of water, but water that is used to produce a feed crop or cattle is non lost. Water is recycled – sometimes in a very circuitous biological process— and information technology all comes dorsum to be used again.

Water requirements vary with animal size and temperature. But on boilerplate, a 1250 pound (567 kg) beef steer only drinks about 10 gallons (nearly 38 litres) of water per day to support its normal metabolic part. That's pretty reasonable considering the average person in Canada uses about 59 gallons (223 litres) per 24-hour interval for consumption and hygiene. And co-ordinate to the well-nigh contempo Statistics Canada data, Canada's combined household and industrial use of water is nearly 37.9 billion cubic meters annually (a cubic meter equals about 220 gallons or thousand litres of h2o) — nosotros humans are a h2o-consuming bunch.

Researchers at the University of Manitoba and Agronomics and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Lethbridge found that in 2011, producing each unit of measurement of Canadian beef used 17% less h2o than thirty years prior. ⁽¹⁾ It also required 29% less breeding stock, 27% fewer harvested cattle and 24% less state, and produced 15% less greenhouse gases to produce each pound or kilogram in 2011 compared to 1981.⁽ⁱⁱ⁾

Just back to the beefiness industry — agriculture in general and beef producers specifically have oftentimes been targeted as beingness high consumers, even "wasters" of water, taking its toll on the environment. However, there's a lot more to this story – it's not as simple as 1,910 gallons of water beingness used for each pound of edible beef produced.

If the beef animal itself simply needs near 10 gallons of water per day to function, what accounts for the rest of the water (footprint) required for that 16 oz steak? Often in inquiry terms the water measured in the total water footprint is broken into iii colour categories. The footprint includes an judge of how much surface and ground (blueish) h2o is used to water cattle, brand fertilizer, irrigate pastures and crops, process beefiness, etc. And then there is a measure 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). Adding these blue, green and gray numbers for cattle produced throughout the world 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 — information technology is going to rain and snow whether cattle are on pasture or not. And it is important to remember of all h2o used i way or some other it all gets recycled.

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

Since the objective is to produce poly peptide, couldn't we just grow more pulse crops such as peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas and yet come across poly peptide requirements, use less water and benefit the environs? Let's take a look at why that theory doesn't concord true.

Water is just office of a very large picture

Starting time of all, whether it is an annual crop (such every bit wheat, canola or peas) or some type of permanent or perennial forage stand (similar alfalfa or bromegrass) consumed by cattle, all crops need moisture to grow. (And equally we talk nearly dissimilar crops in the adjacent few paragraphs, it is important to note there are 2 main types. About field crops such as wheat, barley and peas are annual plants. They are generally seeded in the bound, get harvested in the fall and so die off equally wintertime sets in. Nearly pasture and provender crops are permanent or perennial plants. Native or natural grass species seemingly live forever, while tame or domestic provender species will remain productive for at least two or three years and oft for many years before 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 constitute-based poly peptide by growing  more than peas, beans and lentils, it's not but a matter of swapping out every acre of pasture to produce a field of peas. It's a matter of playing to your strengths — recognize the potential of the land for its best intended purpose.

Annual pulse crops (similar peas, beans and lentils) utilize more water than grass. For dry out pea production, 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 about 2.46 meg pounds of beef produced on about 57 million acres country to grow the pasture, fodder and other feed for the cattle herd, and information technology works out to about 78,813 gallons per acre of land used for beefiness production.

This means that not every acre beef cattle are raised on is suited to crop product . Dry peas demand more than v times as much h2o per acre (414,652 ÷ 78,813 = v.3) than the grass does. Much of the country used to raise forage for beefiness cattle doesn't receive adequate wet or have the right soil conditions to support crop production, but it can produce types of grass that thrives in drier conditions.

Beef manufacture plays an important diverse role

The fact is, today's beef cattle were not the outset bovid species to fix human foot on what we at present consider Canadian agricultural land. For thousands and thousands of years herds of every bit many as 30 million bison roamed beyond N America, including Canada, eating forages and depositing nutrients (manure) back into the soil and living in ecological harmony with thousands of plant and animal species.

Today, the five million head of beefiness cattle being raised on Canadian farms tin can't indistinguishable that natural system, simply as they are managed properly they do provide a valuable contribution to the environment just as the bison did.  Beef cows and the pastures they use help to preserve Canada's shrinking natural grassland ecosystems past providing found and habitat biodiversity for migratory birds and endangered species, too every bit habitat for a host of upland animal species. Properly managed grazing systems besides benefit wetland preservation, while the diversity of plants all assistance to capture and shop carbon from the air in the soil.

Where do cattle fit?

Forages (pastures and harvested roughage) business relationship for approximately lxxx per cent of the feed used by beef cattle in Canada. Nearly a third (31 per cent) of Canada'south agricultural land is pasture. This land is not suited for annual crop product, but information technology tin can grow grass, which needs to exist grazed by animals to remain growing and productive.

Canada'due south beefiness herd is primarily located in the prairies. The southern prairies are drought-prone, and the more northerly growing seasons are too curt for many crops. Central and Eastern Canada generally take higher rainfall and longer growing seasons than the prairies, but not all this farmland is suitable for crop product either. Much of this land is too boggy, stony, or bushy to permit tillage, but it can grow grass. Grass that cattle live on for most of their lives.

Grass and other range and pasture plants incorporate fiber that people can't digest, simply cattle have a specialized microbial population in their stomach (rumen) that allows them to digest cobweb, brand utilize of the nutrients, and convert them into high-quality protein that humans can assimilate. Beefiness cattle production allows u.s. to produce nutritious protein on land that isn't environmentally or climatically suited to cultivation and crop production.

Water cycles

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

Nosotros know that almost of the water plants take up from the soil is transpired back into the air. Like city h2o, the water that beef processing facilities have out of the river at i terminate of the plant is treated and returns to the same river at the other end of the institute. New technologies to recycle and re-employ h2o can reduce the amount of h2o needed for beef processing by 90 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 temper, incorporate the carbon into their roots, stems, leaves, flowers and seeds, and release oxygen dorsum into the atmosphere. Because perennial plants (most hay and pastureland) live for many years, they develop an all-encompassing root system which will eventually decay and become part of the soil carbon. Because these permanent or perennial pastures are non cultivated and reseeded every year, the carbon sequestered by these plants remains in the soil rather than being released dorsum into the temper. Equally a result, numerous studies take documented that grasslands, which remain good for you with grazing cattle, accept more carbon stored in the soil than adjacent annual cropland.

Pastures protect the soil

When land is cultivated to produce annual crops such as 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 difficult fashion. Not knowing any better near the impact of tillage of fields to produce crops, serious losses occurred across Canada —particularly notable on the prairies in the 'Dirty Thirties'. Tillage led to the loss of 40-fifty per cent of the organic carbon from prairie soils, and 60-seventy per cent from central and eastern Canadian soils. Simply nosotros 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. Different commercial fertilizers, using manure as a fertilizer also replenishes organic matter in these soils.

Maintaining permanent grassland and perennial pastures drastically reduces the gamble 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 not suited to annual crop product.

Soil wellness improves

Getting dorsum to the water topic, bated from benefits noted earlier, these permanent grasslands and perennial pastures in fact assistance 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. Every bit a general rule, when lands are left undisturbed, simply 10 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 just dead roots that provide environmental benefits. Because perennial forages aren't cultivated, and oft grow in dry conditions, they grow extensive root systems in their search for wet.

An example of one important plant species is the legume family. There are varieties of legumes that brand excellent pasture and hay crops. They are known as fodder legumes and most are perennial. But there is another whole branch of the legume family that humans consume at the dinner table. These legumes are known as pulse crops and that includes, peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas. Almost annual pulse crops are used for human being food, but even these produce by-products (e.m. stems, pods, shrivelled seeds, etc.) that are not edible for humans just that cattle tin can convert to high quality, nutritious protein.

What's 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 also take a natural power to produce an important soil nutrient known as nitrogen. All legumes can "fix" or capture nitrogen from the air and convert it into soil nitrogen that tin can better soil fertility. Forage legumes can fix upwards to twice as much nitrogen per acre in the soil as annual legume (or pulse) crop.

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

Home on the range

Once again, when you inquire the question, why don't we just grow more annual crops, remember that cattle and soil aren't the only living things affected when grassland is converted to farmland. Grasslands also provide habitat for small 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 practise not thrive nearly equally well nether almanac 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. So maintaining grasslands and perennial pastures provides a huge ecological do good.

Crops and cattle go well together

It is non an all or nothing scenario — crops, cattle, and grasslands need each other. For case, 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 same time, and each institute only flowers for two or iii weeks. Grasslands provide a home for a wide range of plants that all flower at dissimilar times. That means bees have lots of plants to help support them during long periods when almanac crops aren't flowering. Over 140 bee species are resident in Canadian grasslands; bee affluence and diversity are positively related to the presence of grasslands.

Annual crops can as well serve double duty. Canadian farmers produced about 8 million tonnes of barley in 2018. A portion of that was seeded to what'southward known as malting barley varieties that produce barley suitable for the brewing industry. If the grain doesn't encounter specifications for brewing standards (for weather-related reasons, for example), it tin can notwithstanding be used equally proficient quality livestock feed. Information technology'southward a similar situation with the 32 million tonnes of wheat produced annually. If it doesn't meet milling, export or other industrial terminate-apply standards, it can be used every bit skillful quality feed for cattle.

All role of a arrangement

To repeat, yes it takes h2o to produce beef, but on a broader calibration, beef cattle are a vital role of an integrated system. Cattle need grass, grass needs grazing to remain vital, grass protects the soil, healthy soil helps to conserve wet, plants provide feed and habitat for a myriad of species, grains not suitable for the man-food market brand excellent livestock feed, cattle manure provides a valuable natural fertilizer to pastures and crops, and the whole system results in production of a high quality, salubrious protein source for humans.

All food systems rely on h2o, but the virtually important thing to think is the water is not used upwardly. All water ultimately gets recycled.

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