We seem to be running out of everything we use and the only way to make it possible for us to have enough is to simply leave everything alone and live in a world of human repression ( by humans). Too much carbon, too little fish, too much climate change, too little oil, too expensive health care , too much disease. There is no end to the constant bellowing about what the omnipotent government must correct and resolve. The only thing there is too much of is the nonsense that everything that gets perceived as a problem has a government solution. The oceans like the land can be farmed and the release of human intelligence and freedom to act will solve any perceived shortages of anything. Problem is the government advocates think by regulating and wasting resources via taxation they have all the answers when in reality they are the problem. The land was once thought incapable of supporting enough food to feed the bulging population of the world. Technology and production proved that wrong. The oceans are only another resource that needs man's agricultural expertise to become fertile enough to produce abundance. Saving the planet via government repression is old hat , immoral and ignorant.

"Consider the water footprint of beef. In an industrial beef production system,

Industrial is bad. We all know this. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Destroy the industrial farming. Save the organic farms. I agree on this point.

it takes on average three years before the animal is slaughtered to produce about 200 kg of boneless beef. The animal consumes nearly 1,300 kg of grains (wheat, oats, barley, corn, dry peas, soybean meal and other small grains), 7,200 kg of roughages (pasture, dry hay, silage and other roughages), 24 cubic metres of water for drinking and 7 cubic metres of water for servicing.

Again, where is all this water stored? In the udders? They're not THAT big. Do you know how much water 25,000 liters is? If you think the cow hid it, then you've been smoking some real mean stuff.

Truth is, the water passes through the natural system. It ends up back in the ground, it refills the aquifers. But the scientists will not tell you this BECAUSE THEY HAVE AN AGENDA.

Yet you cannot figure out this for yourself EITHER? sad, sorry, sad. Let me off this stoopid planet.,

This means that to produce one kilogram of boneless beef, we use about 6.5 kg of grain, 36 kg of roughages, and 155 litres of water (only for drinking and servicing). Producing the volume of feed requires about 15,300 litres of water on average. The water footprint of 1 kg of beef thus adds up to 15,500 litres of water. This still excludes the volume of polluted water that may result from leaching of fertilisers in the feed crop field or from surplus manure reaching the water system.

Oh, the fertilizers. I see... and again, we NEED these? Cows did not depend on fertilizers eons ago. But somehow, suddenly this is VITAL. Yet we humans are disposable. The disposable humans are creating the vital fertilizers. Does something here not strike you as extremely STRANGE?!?

The numbers provided are estimated global averages; the water footprint of beef will strongly vary depending on the production region, feed composition and origin of the feed ingredients."

Industrial cow production is to blame. Simple as that.

Cows need ZERO gallons of water. This is the truth.

gee, I second guessed myself...

my bad.

ALSO, I am not a farming expert, but the so called need for alfalfa in a cow's diet? Again, cows survived for millions of years PRIOR to us humans growing pesticide ridden GMOed nutritionally bereft alfalfa that we personally pitchfork into the mouths of the cows.

The problem is that unless you're talking about climactic and ecological conditions like the Argentine pampas, you wind up with a low population of awfully scrawny and unprofitable cows without supplemental feedstocks like alfalfa and grain.

Look at the buffalo pastures in the West. Grazing livestock just does not eat up or waste nature.

The buffalo pastures of the American West were tallgrass prairie- a type of ground cover that only exists in fragmentary patches nowadays. Tallgrass grows a lot taller than most forage grasses, provides a lot more nutrition per acre, and retains more water in its leaves and stems. Additionally, American bison do have humps that help them to retain water and lower their need to consume it. Also, the Great Plains of the American West are riven by large watercourses- river systems like the Arkansas, Platte, and Missouri. And they were places where bison watered up in their migrations.

I'd like to see tallgrass and wild bison migrations restored on the Great Plains at some point- not necessarily excluding a regulated sustainable harvest for food, either. But I don't anticipate the funding to provide a migration corridor, by returning cropfields to wild tallgrass and elevating highways and railways, for many a year to come.

In any event, in terms of the factors of water and forage feed, the case of bison on tallgrass prairie is not analogous to the case of free ranging domestic cattle- which is now more typically raised in the American West in semiarid climate conditions, on sagebrush and dry grass (with some difficulty, as far as profitability).

A world government overseer will not be a good thing.

It will STILL allow all the bad farming practices, the poisoning of the ground, the production of nutritionally bereft food, to occur. It will still enrich a few trillionaires at the top, who will lord over the serfs, as they already try to do today.

Yet, it will punish those smaller farmers trying to do things right. Using the land responsibly. Providing air, light and freedom to the cows to grow naturally. Avoiding the use of soil destroying chemicals and fertilizers. To you people, these farmers are pure evil, that must be eradicated. Who are THEY to have permission to LIVE?

Ultimately, super big government will force everyone into a choice: Lose your freedoms or die. Destroy your soul or WE will destroy it for you. LICK the infinitely dense boot of the overseer government or be STOMPED out of existence.

You people just cannot WAIT to destroy what is left of this planet in your race to prove that your internal feeling of superiority is somehow JUSTIFIED. How weak and pathetic you are and forever will be, eradicating the innocents.