Water Usage & Manure Management
With the world’s population increasing and droughts spreading throughout America’s southwest, conserving water is becoming a very important issue. Startingly, 17% of the world’s population doesn’t have access to clean water. Many large cities have placed restrictions on home lawn watering, environmentalists urge measures such as shorter showers and fixing dripping faucets, and governments are making safe drinking water more and more difficult to come by. In agriculture, consumers have become very critical of growing methods that require a great deal of ground water.
Livestock is no exception to this. |
Many people have actually cut all animal products out of their diets under the pretenses that animals drink too much water, among other reasons. And they’re not wrong. A lactating momma cow, during hot weather, can drink up to 30 gallons of water every day. When you consider the number of dairy plus beef cattle being raised across the globe, and the dozen other livestock species that are in production, you realize that the amount of water displaced by raising farm animals is truly an unfathomable number.
However, we have to ask ourselves what “displaced” really means. What happens to the water after it’s used? As I discussed in my article about greenhouse gases, “animal agriculture” is a very misleading term. There are no definitive lines between the different branches of agriculture (i.e. crops, livestock, mining, forestry). An example of this is the reason that livestock producers should not be blamed for the amount of water they use. What do I mean?
Poop.
100% of the water used in livestock production is recycled. Although notable amounts are conserved all the way to the final product (i.e. the water content in milk or beef) and some is lost to the atmosphere through sweat, the majority of the water drank by farm animals ends up in their feces. In many large farms, such as dairies where the cows are kept in lots, all of the manure is gathered into lagoons.
From the lagoons, the manure is syphoned out and transported to nearby crop fields and dispersed as natural fertilizer. Because it is high in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, the manure is a low cost option that results in high crop yields. Different manure handling processes result in different nutrient profiles of the fertilizer, but, for those that invest in equipment and extra labor, the return cost of this extra commodity can be quite significant. This is one way that farmers actually get financial rewards for using sustainable practices.
However, we have to ask ourselves what “displaced” really means. What happens to the water after it’s used? As I discussed in my article about greenhouse gases, “animal agriculture” is a very misleading term. There are no definitive lines between the different branches of agriculture (i.e. crops, livestock, mining, forestry). An example of this is the reason that livestock producers should not be blamed for the amount of water they use. What do I mean?
Poop.
100% of the water used in livestock production is recycled. Although notable amounts are conserved all the way to the final product (i.e. the water content in milk or beef) and some is lost to the atmosphere through sweat, the majority of the water drank by farm animals ends up in their feces. In many large farms, such as dairies where the cows are kept in lots, all of the manure is gathered into lagoons.
From the lagoons, the manure is syphoned out and transported to nearby crop fields and dispersed as natural fertilizer. Because it is high in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, the manure is a low cost option that results in high crop yields. Different manure handling processes result in different nutrient profiles of the fertilizer, but, for those that invest in equipment and extra labor, the return cost of this extra commodity can be quite significant. This is one way that farmers actually get financial rewards for using sustainable practices.
Another way that the manure can be used, but is currently only happening on very large farms, is by running it through a methane generator. Basically, this machine releases the gasses from the manure which generates electricity. Whole farms are being self-run off of this energy, with electricity leftover to sell. There are many different models of the technology, but some also produce a sandy material that farmers can use as bedding. Nate Hartway, a dairy farm manager from New York, is very proud of the machine his farm uses, which separates the manure into many parts: clean sand, fertilizer, and, get this… fresh water that’s clean enough to drink! This technology restores water back to its original form. Hopefully, over time, these devices will become cheaper and start to be mass produced so that all types of farms can use them.
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This is the reason that the issues of water consumption and waste management often go hand-in-hand in agriculture. A widely used figure is that, in the United States alone, farm animals produce over 335 million tons of manure. Cattle and swine are typically considered the two greatest contributors to this statistic. State laws require farms that run over a certain number of head to submit a Nutrient Management Plan. Although the amount of head and specific details required in the plan vary by state, most mandate farmers to disclose an estimate of how much manure their animals produce, how they store it, and where they sent it to. The fear of mishandled manure is that, if it ends up in waterways, it can cause Hypoxic Dead Zones, which is actually a topic that I’ve done quite a bit of research on throughout college, and I plan to discuss later in this Sustainability Series.
With all that said though, it’s certainly still true that water needs are rising because there are increasingly more people that need to drink and more production (throughout all sectors that each have their own needs for water) that is taking place. We only have so much water on this earth, and agriculturalists have a duty to use the minimum amount possible. By making the water we use go farther, accelerating the transit time from the moment the animal drinks the water until it is sprayed onto the fields, we can reduce how much water we use. Specific ways that farmers and ranchers are being more water-friendly will be addressed later in this Sustainability Series.
With all that said though, it’s certainly still true that water needs are rising because there are increasingly more people that need to drink and more production (throughout all sectors that each have their own needs for water) that is taking place. We only have so much water on this earth, and agriculturalists have a duty to use the minimum amount possible. By making the water we use go farther, accelerating the transit time from the moment the animal drinks the water until it is sprayed onto the fields, we can reduce how much water we use. Specific ways that farmers and ranchers are being more water-friendly will be addressed later in this Sustainability Series.