Almost everything we eat has consumed water somewhere in the process of being made and processed. But beef is credited with one of the biggest water footprints.
With our calculations and those of other beef-producing countries, we found that this was more than 15,000 liters per kilogram of beef.
But this number doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about how much water is used to make the beef on your plate or how it affects the environment. When you look more closely, you can see that where and how the beef is raised has a big impact on its water footprint.
Food production accounts for 70% of freshwater withdrawn from the environment. Water shortages in the western US and other places are caused in part by the need to use a lot of water to grow beef.
It’s also important to look at how much water is used to grow the food we eat because climate change could make droughts last longer and be worse.
So, how “thirsty” is beef? First, we have to differentiate between water from two sources. When we talk about water we usually think of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and groundwater aquifers.
This is what hydrologists call blue water. Blue water used to grow food depletes these water sources, leaving less for homes, businesses, and keeping the environment healthy.
Green water on the other hand is rainfall that plants consume. In some places, the plants that cows eat, like grass for grazing, hay or silage, and cereals, are mostly watered by rain. This green water makes up a big part of the huge amounts of water that beef is said to use.
Since green water can’t be used for anything else (unless you put a tarp over the ground and catch some of it), we don’t count its use as an effect of livestock production. Instead, we should focus on the blue water that is used. A serving of beef requires a lot less blue water than the 15,000 liters that were given above.
Raising cattle for beef is a water-intensive process. From the water a cow drinks to the irrigation of the feed crops it eats, a significant amount of water goes into producing beef. But just how much water does it take to produce 1 kilogram of beef? Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Water Usage in Beef Production
The amount of water usage can vary based on the country and production methods. However, most estimates range from 15,000-20,000 liters (4,000-5,300 gallons) of water to produce 1 kilogram of beef.
This high water requirement is due to the various steps involved:
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Drinking Water – Cattle require water for drinking, needing 20-30 gallons per animal per day.
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Feed Irrigation – Significant water is used to grow the crops that cattle eat. Corn, soy, hay and silage crops require substantial irrigation.
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Livestock Water – Water is used for sanitation of cattle housing and equipment Cleaning of milking parlors and evidentiary pens uses additional water
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Processing Water – Water is used for slaughter, meat processing and sanitation in beef plants. Each carcass requires extensive rinsing and cleaning.
When totaled up, the water usage adds up to thousands of liters per kilo of beef produced. Some key statistics on the breakdown:
- 11% blue water (surface and groundwater) for drinking
- 31% blue water for feed irrigation
- 33% gray water (recycled water) for livestock services
- 25% gray water for processing
The high demand has raised sustainability concerns, as beef production accounts for nearly 30% of the water footprint of agricultural goods around the world.
Water Requirements Vary Globally
The actual amount of water needed for 1 kg of beef production ranges based on geographic region:
- US – 15,400 liters
- Europe – 13,500 liters
- Brazil – 12,700 liters
- China – 10,200 liters
- Sub-Saharan Africa – 20,000 liters
Regions like Sub-Saharan Africa use extensive irrigation to grow livestock feed crops, driving increased water demands. Industrialized nations tend to have optimized systems that require slightly less water.
Reducing the Water Impact
The high water usage of beef production has led to strategies to improve sustainability:
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Grass-fed – Grass-fed cattle avoid water-intensive grain farming. However, they may require more land and emit more methane.
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Precision agriculture – Using precision techniques to optimize crop irrigation and cattle drinking water can conserve water.
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Reduced food waste – Wasting less beef results in more efficient use of the water already invested in production.
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Dietary shifts – Reducing beef consumption in favor of poultry, eggs or plant-based protein could significantly lower water footprints.
While innovative techniques can help, most experts agree that decreased beef consumption offers the greatest potential for reducing the substantial water demands from industrial beef production.
Water Usage Compared to Other Proteins
The water required for beef dwarfs the usage for other protein sources:
- Beef: 15,000 liters/kg
- Pork: 6,000 liters/kg
- Chicken: 4,300 liters/kg
- Eggs: 3,300 liters/kg
- Tofu: 300 liters/kg
- Legumes: 50 liters/kg
Beef’s disproportionately high water usage is due to the feed requirements and low feed-to-meat conversion ratio for cattle. Chicken, plant proteins and other meats convert their feed to meat more efficiently.
Environmental Impacts
In addition to water usage, beef production has other environmental considerations:
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Land usage – Beef uses 160 times more land than wheat and potatoes per gram of protein. cattle grazing requires vast grasslands.
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Carbon footprint – Beef accounts for 41% of livestock emissions. The methane from cattle is estimated to have 86 times the global warming potential of CO2.
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Pollution – Manure from cattle ranches can pollute nearby water bodies. Feed crop fertilizers contribute to algae blooms and dead zones.
With all factors combined, beef has one of the highest environmental footprints among foods. Reducing consumption and choosing sustainably raised beef can help lower its resource demands.
So how much water for 1 kg of beef? Estimates range from 15,000-20,000 liters (4,000-5,300 gallons) of water to produce 1 kilogram of beef. The high requirement is due to drinking, feed irrigation, livestock services, and meat processing demands. Beef production accounts for nearly 30% of the global water footprint for agriculture. Efforts to improve efficiency are being made, but decreasing beef consumption offers the most direct path to reducing its substantial water usage and overall environmental footprint.
What’s the beef with blue water?
In the feed processing industry, blue water is used to water grass and other feed crops. It is also used on farms for drinking water, cleaning, and to rinse abattoirs. Small amounts are used in other things, such as veterinary products, but these are trivial in comparison.
How much blue water it takes to get the meat to your plate depends on what the animal ate and how it was raised. For the UK, we estimated a national average of 67 litres per kilogram of carcass.
This is relatively low, because most beef consumed in the UK is fed on rain-fed grass and crops. Production systems in the US, on the other hand, that rely on irrigated feed may consume almost 2,000 litres per kg. This is blue water that has been diverted from rivers and aquifers.
In addition to raising the animal, 700 litres to 1,000 litres of water is used per animal in the abattoir for washing and hygiene.
Not all of the carcass makes beef – some of it may make dog food and there’s also inedible hide and bone – so the total water consumption has to be allocated among all the products. Producing a serving (375g) of English topside consumes 33 litres of blue water, 96% of which goes towards feeding and raising the animal.
The consequences of using water to produce food depend on where the water has come from and how much is available. In the UK, most beef production is concentrated in south-west England, Cheshire, north-west England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland – all wetter parts of the British Isles.
But most of the water cattle drink, and the water used to process their meat, comes from the public water supply where it competes with other demands. As of spring 2023, water restrictions are in place in parts of south-west England due to prolonged dry weather.
It’s not just water
The 33 litres of freshwater needed to produce a serving of beef is more than ten times as much as the 2.3 litres required to grow the potatoes you might have on the side, though it is much less than the 73 litres used to produce an avocado in Peru for instance, or the 181 litres required to produce a serving of basmati rice in Pakistan.
But there are lots of other things to consider for a sustainable and healthy diet: water scarcity is just one of the many impacts of producing beef. Cows emit potent greenhouse gas emissions such as methane and growing the crops that feed them, such as cereals, consumes a lot of synthetic fertiliser which is usually made by burning fossil fuels.
In some cases, the grassland cows eat might be a net absorber of CO2 from the air and not good for other farming purposes. A lot of forest and other habitats have been lost to make room for this pasture, though. The land that was used to grow feed for cows could now be used to grow food for people. If poorly managed, slurry from livestock pollutes rivers.
If you want to make smart decisions about how beef affects the world’s water, you need to know where the meat came from. If you eat beef from the western US, it could seriously affect how much water is available for other things. Beef from Britain, on the other hand, is less harmful.
You would also need to know what the animal was fed, whether the feed was irrigated, where the water came from and how scarce water is in that region. At that point, you have to consider how to trade off water use with other environmental and social consequences.
Tim Hess, Professor of Water and Food Systems, Cranfield University and Adrian Williams, Visiting Research Fellow in Environmental Systems, Cranfield University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
How much water is needed to produce a pound of beef?
FAQ
How much water does it take to make 1 kg of beef?
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Foodstuff
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Quantity
|
Water consumption, litres
|
|
Chocolate
|
1 kg
|
17,196
|
|
Beef
|
1 kg
|
15,415
|
|
Sheep Meat
|
1 kg
|
10,412
|
|
Pork
|
1 kg
|
5,988
|
How much water does it take to produce 1 pound of beef?
How much water is needed to produce beef?
How much water to produce 1kg of chicken?
How much water does a kilo of beef use?
If you buy 1kg of beef for a barbecue at the weekend, there has been an average of 15,415 liters of water used in its production! Breaking up meat’s monopoly as the most thirsty food type is nuts, with 9,063 liters of water needed to produce the average kilo.
How much water does a pound of meat take to produce?
Include an ice-cold soda at 46, and this typical lunch took 206 gallons of water to produce. Click image to view larger version. Pound for pound, meat has a much higher water footprint than vegetables, grains or beans. 4 A single pound of beef takes, on average, 1,800 gallons of water to produce.
How much water does a pound of boneless beef use?
Water use estimates, or water footprints (defined as the amount of water used per unit of product), are available in the scientific literature and indicate that water footprints range from 317 1 up to 23,965 2 gallons per pound of boneless beef. Why is the range so large?
How much water does a pound of steak use?
In the US to produce one pound (1 lb, 0.4kg) of steak requires, on average, 1,799 gallons of water – for pork it is 576 gallons of water and for a pound of chicken it is 468 gallons of water. Johns Hopkins University says that in general the ratios for water use are approximately 7:1 for beef, 5:1 for pork and 2.5:1 for poultry.