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Ditch the Meat, Ditch the Drought

An appeal from the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition.
Katie Cantrell

s most have heard by now, California is in pollution. There are over nine billion animals
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the throes of a critical drought. The year raised for food every year in the United States,
A2013 was the state's driest since record and all of those animals poop. In fact, farm
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keeping began in 1895. Over half of the state's animals in the U.S. produce 130 times more
counties have been labeled primary natural waste than the entire U.S. human population. 9
disaster areas due to the drought. 2 Yet there are no sewage pipes or treatment
Amidst this crisis, understandably much plants for animal waste; most of it is sprayed
attention is being given to ways that citizens onto land surrounding factory farms, where it
can help reduce our water usage. Counties seeps into local water tables and runs off into
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are imposing fines for over-watering lawns. local rivers. According to the Environmental
Billboards and public service announcements Protection Agency (EPA), manure from farm
urge people to take shorter animals is a leading cause of
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showers and turn off the tap water pollution in the U.S.
while brushing their teeth. Rather than looking at and has polluted thirty-five
our faucets, we should thousand miles of river in
These exhortations 11
are well-intentioned, but be looking at our diets. twenty-two states.
there's one gaping problem. This issue recently
Consumers account for just 4 percent of water gained national attention when the residents
usage in California. Agriculture accounts for 93 of Toledo, Ohio, were told not to drink, wash, or
percent, with roughly half of that used by the cook with their tap water due to a toxic algae
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meat and dairy industries. Rather than looking bloom in Lake Erie, which supplies Toledo's
at our faucets, we should be looking at our diets. water. Both fertilizer runoff from farms growing
By far the most effective way for consumers corn and soy to feed to animals on factory farms,
to decrease our water usage is to consume less and waste from those animals themselves have
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meat and dairy. A single hamburger takes 660 been implicated in the toxic bloom.
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gallons of water to produce, while a veggie Thus the best way to both maintain and
burger with equivalent protein takes just 52 protect our water supply is to decrease the
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gallons of water to produce. A gallon of milk demand for water-intensive and water-polluting
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takes 880 gallons of water to produce, while a animal products.
gallon of soy milk with equivalent
calcium takes just 50 gallons of
water to produce. 6 Daily Water Footprint by Diet (gallons)
The California Water Board's 1000
website advises that by reducing
shower times by one to two 800
minutes people can save five
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gallons of water. They fail to 600
mention that by switching from a
hamburger to a veggie burger, or 400
cow milk to soy milk, people can
save as much water as an entire 200
month's worth of showers.
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Decreasing meat and dairy Meat Ovolactovegetarian
consumption will also help
protect the remaining water from * Hoekstra, Arjen (2012). "The hidden water resource use behind meat and dairy." Animal Frontiers, 2 (2), 3-8.

1 4 TZU CHI USA SUMMER 2015