Water savings through energy expenditure

The increasing demand for meat and other water intensive foods is already creating a massive incentive to increase production.

Since water is the number one factor limiting agricultural production farmers are already turning to methods of production which save water. Unfortunately for the environment, farmers and agribusiness are currently turning to feed lots, factory farms, piggeries, chicken barns, aquaculture, hydroponics and other technical solutions that achieve their water savings through increased energy expenditure.

Feedlots and Factory Farms: becoming the primary way of producing animal protein

Feed lots and factory farms achieve their water efficiency primarily through increasing fodder harvesting and grain production. Most feed lot cattle are fed a grain based ration. However, some of the “Grass Fed” beef you buy today is fed mown grass in feedlots.

This efficiency comes at a price and the price is a massive increase in energy use, huge pollution concentrations and other increased environmental impacts.

Hydroponics: Drought Proof Farming but massive energy expenditure

Horticultural farmers have been investing in hydroponics to produce more food with less water.

The fertilisers contaminate the water with salt so eventually it is thrown away, this accounts for about 75% of the water use of a hydroponics system. To recover this water hydroponic farmers use a desalination plant to treat the water to remove the salt. That takes the water savings from 80% to about 95%. Hydroponics already has a higher environmental footprint and the energy requirements of desalination increase it even further. In practice these operations uses so little water that they are drought proof  but that climate security has huge environmental cost.

Aquaculture: Low water use but massive nutrient pollution

When fish are farmed, just like any other animal, they produce a lot of waste. Either the waste is dumped in the environment or masses of energy is expended processing the waste and the waste water. Either way the environmental impact is huge.

Alternatives: The solution is to integrate.