Alfalfa Cattle feed: takes 20% of CA water, returns 0.1% to CA economy

There are many obnoxious features of the cattle industry, starting with the way the land was taken from the indigenous people, its deforestation, its extravagant use of huge tracts of land, the revolting smell of putrefying manure, the necessity of castrating and killing half the herd (those that can't produce milk), and now, on top of it all, a truly appalling use of water. Cattle feed uses even more water than almonds (takes a gallon for each almond). Water is life: things must change!

Alfalfa: The Thirstiest Crop — Natural Defenses Resource Council

California's rivers and wetlands, and the critical San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem, have suf-fered serious degradation as a result of excessive water diversions. Much of the water taken outof the ecosystem goes to support California's industrial agriculture. Agriculture now uses ap-proximately 80 percent of California's developed water supply, but produces less than 2.5 percentof California's income.
Alfalfa, the biggest water user of any California crop, soaks up almost a quarter of the state's ir-rigation water. Yet alfalfa -- harvested mostly for hay to feed dairy livestock -- is a low-valuecrop that accounts for only 4 percent of state farming revenues. An alfalfa farm using 240 acre-feet of water generates $60,000 in sales, while a semiconductor plant using the same amount ofwater generates 5,000 times that amount, or $300 million. (And while such a farm could functionwith as few as two workers, the semiconductor plant would employ 2,000.)
In short, California devotes 20 percent of its developed water supply to a crop that generates lessthan one-tenth of one percent of the state's economy. Given the degraded state of California's riv-ers and growing demands for water for higher value agricultural crops and urban areas, is this anefficient use of a precious resource?
Alfalfa covers more of California's land than any other kind of produce. About 26% is grown inthe state's parched southern deserts, and despite the existence of demonstrated techniques forachieving high crop yields with water-saving methods -- such as drip irrigation and bedded al-falfa -- most California growers use inefficient irrigation techniques such as flooding.
Excessive water use isn't the only cost associated with alfalfa crops. Seventy percent of thestate's alfalfa feeds California's largest agricultural industry: its dairy cows. Dairy farms in theCentral Valley alone produce as much waste as a city of 21 million; illegal manure waste fromdairies is believed to threaten the drinking water of 65 percent of Californians. In total, 7,000gallons of water go into keeping a single cow alive for a single day, yielding a daily return ofabout 30 cents. Wasteful subsidies worsen this problem by increasing dairy demand for alfalfa.
Although alfalfa does yield some environmental benefits -- maintaining soil health, providingsome wildlife habitat and preventing erosion through its extensive root systems -- current pro-duction levels are unsustainable, contributing to the destruction of ecosystems all over the state.Even a modest reduction in production would result in tremendous water savings.
Addressing the alfalfa problem is all about changing how we manage our water supply -- weneed to make systemic changes that will encourage markets to work.