What It Takes to Grow Beef

Facts nearly h2o apply and other environmental impacts of beef production in Canada

Aye, it takes h2o to produce beef, just in the ii.v million years since our ancestors started eating meat, we haven't lost a drop yet.

Based on the almost recent science and extensive calculations of a broad range of factors, information technology is estimated that the pasture-to-plate journey of this important protein source requires most 1,910 The states gallons per pound (or 15,944 litres per kilogram) of water to get Canadian beef to the dinner tabular array. That's what is known equally the "water footprint" of beef production.

That may audio like a lot, but the fact is it doesn't thing what ingather or animate being is being produced; food product takes water. Sometimes information technology sounds like a lot of h2o, simply water that is used to produce a feed crop or cattle is not lost. Water is recycled – sometimes in a very circuitous biological process— and information technology all comes back to be used again.

Water requirements vary with brute size and temperature. But on boilerplate, a 1250 pound (567 kg) beef steer merely drinks about 10 gallons (well-nigh 38 litres) of water per day to support its normal metabolic function. That'south pretty reasonable considering the average person in Canada uses about 59 gallons (223 litres) per day for consumption and hygiene. And co-ordinate to the most contempo Statistics Canada data, Canada's combined household and industrial use of water is about 37.9 billion cubic meters annually (a cubic meter equals about 220 gallons or 1000 litres of water) — we humans are a water-consuming bunch.

Researchers at the Academy of Manitoba and Agronomics and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Lethbridge found that in 2011, producing each unit of Canadian beef used 17% less water than thirty years prior. ⁽¹⁾ It also required 29% less breeding stock, 27% fewer harvested cattle and 24% less land, and produced xv% less greenhouse gases to produce each pound or kilogram in 2011 compared to 1981.⁽²⁾

Only back to the beefiness manufacture — agronomics in general and beefiness producers specifically have often been targeted every bit being high consumers, even "wasters" of water, taking its price on the environment. Still, there'south a lot more than to this story – it's non as simple as 1,910 gallons of water beingness used for each pound of edible beefiness produced.

If the beef animal itself only needs virtually ten gallons of water per twenty-four hours to office, what accounts for the remainder of the water (footprint) required for that 16 oz steak? Ofttimes in enquiry terms the h2o measured in the full water footprint is broken into three color categories. The footprint includes an gauge of how much surface and footing (blue) water is used to water cattle, make fertilizer, irrigate pastures and crops, procedure beef, etc. And then at that place 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). Adding these bluish, light-green and gray numbers for cattle produced throughout the world produces a global "water footprint" for beefiness. It is worth noting that more than 95% of the water used in beef production is green water — it is going to rain and snowfall whether cattle are on pasture or non. And information technology is important to remember of all water used one style or some other it all gets recycled.

If you look at the life bicycle of a beef brute from nascency 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 as it is finished to market place weight. It also reflects the water used in the processing and packaging needed to go a whole animal assembled into retail cuts and portion sizes for the consumer. Every footstep of the process requires water.

Since the objective is to produce protein, couldn't nosotros just grow more pulse crops such as peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas and still meet protein requirements, apply less water and benefit the surroundings? Permit'south take a look at why that theory doesn't concord truthful.

Water is simply role of a very large picture

First of all, whether information technology is an annual crop (such as 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 as nosotros talk about different crops in the next few paragraphs, it is important to note there are two principal types. Most field crops such every bit wheat, barley and peas are almanac plants. They are generally seeded in the bound, get harvested in the fall and so die off as wintertime sets in. About pasture and forage crops are permanent or perennial plants. Native or natural grass species seemingly live forever, while tame or domestic fodder species volition remain productive for at least 2 or three years and oftentimes for many years earlier they need to be reseeded.)

Both almanac crops and forages are important in Canadian agriculture. Just, when people wonder why we just don't produce more than plant-based protein by growing  more peas, beans and lentils, it'south 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) use more h2o than grass. For dry out pea production, for example, it takes about 414,562 gallons of h2o per acre of land to grow peas. Compare that to total Canadian beef production of about two.46 1000000 pounds of beef produced on about 57 million 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 land used for beefiness product.

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

Beefiness industry plays an important various office

The fact is, today'south beef cattle were non the first bovid species to gear up human foot on what we now consider Canadian agricultural country. For thousands and thousands of years herds of as many as thirty million bison roamed across N America, including Canada, eating forages and depositing nutrients (manure) back into the soil and living in ecological harmony with thousands of constitute and animate being species.

Today, the five million head of beef cattle being raised on Canadian farms tin can't indistinguishable that natural arrangement, but every bit they are managed properly they practice provide a valuable contribution to the environment just equally the bison did.  Beef cows and the pastures they employ assist to preserve Canada's shrinking natural grassland ecosystems by providing plant and habitat biodiversity for migratory birds and endangered species, also every bit habitat for a host of upland fauna species. Properly managed grazing systems also benefit wetland preservation, while the diversity of plants all help to capture and store carbon from the air in the soil.

Where do cattle fit?

Forages (pastures and harvested roughage) account for approximately eighty per cent of the feed used by beef cattle in Canada. About a third (31 per cent) of Canada'southward agricultural land is pasture. This state is not suited for annual ingather product, simply information technology tin abound grass, which needs to be grazed past animals to remain growing and productive.

Canada's beef herd is primarily located in the prairies. The southern prairies are drought-prone, and the more northerly growing seasons are too brusk for many crops. Key and Eastern Canada mostly have higher rainfall and longer growing seasons than the prairies, simply not all this farmland is suitable for crop production either. Much of this state is too boggy, stony, or bushy to allow cultivation, simply it can grow grass. Grass that cattle alive on for near of their lives.

Grass and other range and pasture plants incorporate fiber that people can't digest, merely cattle have a specialized microbial population in their stomach (rumen) that allows them to digest fiber, make employ of the nutrients, and convert them into loftier-quality protein that humans tin can digest. Beef cattle product allows united states of america to produce nutritious protein on state that isn't environmentally or climatically suited to cultivation and crop product.

Water cycles

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

Nosotros know that near of the h2o plants accept up from the soil is transpired dorsum into the air. Similar metropolis water, the water that beef processing facilities take out of the river at 1 stop of the plant is treated and returns to the same river at the other end of the establish. New technologies to recycle and re-apply water tin can reduce the amount of water needed for beef processing by xc per cent.

Storing greenhouse gases

Plants — pasture and hayland, all crops actually — help to capture and store carbon. Plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, contain 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) live for many years, they develop an extensive root system which will eventually decay and get part of the soil carbon. Considering these permanent or perennial pastures are not cultivated and reseeded every year, the carbon sequestered by these plants remains in the soil rather than beingness released back into the temper. As a outcome, numerous studies have documented that grasslands, which remain salubrious with grazing cattle, take more carbon stored in the soil than side by side almanac 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 hard way. Non knowing any better about the touch of tillage of fields to produce crops, serious losses occurred beyond Canada —particularly notable on the prairies in the 'Dirty Thirties'. Cultivation led to the loss of 40-50 per cent of the organic carbon from prairie soils, and threescore-70 per cent from central and eastern Canadian soils. But nosotros learned from those mistakes and today, most annual crops are grown nether reduced or no-till cropping systems — crops are seeded with minimal soil disturbance. Unlike commercial fertilizers, using manure as a fertilizer likewise replenishes organic matter in these soils.

Maintaining permanent grassland and perennial pastures drastically reduces the hazard of soil loss due to current of air and water erosion, and keeps stored carbon stored in the soil. The point is that cattle take an splendid fit on productive agricultural state non suited to annual crop production.

Soil health improves

Getting back to the water topic, aside from benefits noted earlier, these permanent grasslands and perennial pastures in fact help to conserve moisture every bit roots and plant matter assistance to improve soil structure and help rain and snow melt percolate downward through the soil. That'southward known as water infiltration. As a general rule, when lands are left undisturbed, merely ten per cent of atmospheric 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.

It's not just dead roots that provide environmental benefits. Because perennial forages aren't cultivated, and often grow in dry conditions, they grow all-encompassing root systems in their search for wet.

An instance of i important establish species is the legume family. There are varieties of legumes that brand splendid pasture and hay crops. They are known as forage legumes and most are perennial. But there is some other whole branch of the legume family that humans eat at the dinner table. These legumes are known as pulse crops and that includes, peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas. Near almanac pulse crops are used for human food, but even these produce by-products (e.g. stems, pods, shrivelled seeds, etc.) that are not edible for humans only that cattle tin can convert to high quality, nutritious protein.

What's interesting nigh 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 have a natural ability to produce an important soil food known as nitrogen. All legumes can "fix" or capture nitrogen from the air and convert it into soil nitrogen that tin improve soil fertility. Forage legumes can fix up to twice every bit much nitrogen per acre in the soil as annual legume (or pulse) ingather.

Lands that are decumbent to periodic flooding or drought benefit from the permanent institute comprehend that forages provide. The roots and vegetation keep the soil in place so that information technology doesn't erode, wash away in a flood or blow away during a drought.

Home on the range

Again, when yous ask the question, why don't we only grow more annual crops, call up that cattle and soil aren't the only living things affected when grassland is converted to farmland. Grasslands also provide habitat for small-scale 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 wildlife that require undisturbed natural habitats practice not thrive nearly equally well nether annual cropping systems.

Most of Canada's native grasslands take 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 benefit.

Crops and cattle become well together

It is not an all or nothing scenario — crops, cattle, and grasslands need each other. For case, canola crops yield and ripen amend when they are pollinated by bees. Because an unabridged field is seeded at the same time, all the canola plants blossom at the same time, and each plant only flowers for ii or three weeks. Grasslands provide a habitation for a wide range of plants that all blossom at different times. That means bees have lots of plants to assist support them during long periods when annual 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 tin also serve double duty. Canadian farmers produced virtually eight million tonnes of barley in 2018. A portion of that was seeded to what'south known every bit malting barley varieties that produce barley suitable for the brewing industry. If the grain doesn't meet specifications for brewing standards (for weather-related reasons, for example), it can all the same exist used as good quality livestock feed. It's a like situation with the 32 million tonnes of wheat produced annually. If it doesn't meet milling, consign or other industrial end-use standards, it can be used as good quality feed for cattle.

All part of a arrangement

To repeat, yes it takes h2o to produce beef, only on a broader scale, beefiness cattle are a vital part of an integrated system. Cattle demand grass, grass needs grazing to remain vital, grass protects the soil, healthy soil helps to conserve moisture, plants provide feed and habitat for a myriad of species, grains not suitable for the human-food market make 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, healthy protein source for humans.

All nutrient systems rely on water, but the most of import thing to remember is the h2o is not used up. All water ultimately gets recycled.

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