More About Water Along the Colorado River

Recent news about the Colorado River water negotiations has brought the uses of water in the bordering states to greater light. I've written before about how Arizona is effectively exporting some of its water at a fraction of its market cost to Saudi Arabia via alfafa-growing.

Well, it turns out that alfafa-growing and exporting is common in a number of other states using Colorado River water, as I learned today from this thread by Jenny Stojkovic. Some of the key facts and links she related:

• Less than 20% of the Colorado's water goes to residential use (including all those desert-area lawns, which shouldn't exist). I've always assumed that the other 80% was divided between industrial/energy and agricultural uses, and I didn't think too hard about what the latter part of that meant, I admit. 
• Alfafa, of course, is not eaten by humans; it's eaten by cows, so this is a great example of the inefficiency of land and water use in raising meat for human consumption. All that water is used to get tiny amounts of meat, compared to the amount of plant food you could raise on the same amount of land with the same amount of water. 
• Alfafa-growing, which is highly irrigated, uses two-thirds of Utah's water (source). "Two and a half hours of water usage in one single field of alfalfa is the same amount of water used by a family of four...for a year."
• A 2014 National Geographic story explained this idea of "exporting 'virtual water'" from water-deficient areas, but Stojkovic says "beef and dairy lobbyists fought hard, and in response, invented the 'almonds cause the drought' campaign to deflect from the looming water catastrophe." 
• In California, more than 20% of the state's water is used for pasture and alfalfa and more than 70% of the alfalfa grown is exported to China and Japan.
  
• Lack of agricultural land in Japan and the U.S. trade imbalance with China (meaning, empty container ships returning to China) are much of what drive the markets in those two countries. Arid lands in the Middle East, I assume, account for the markets in those countries.
  
• The Guardian also had a story on alfalfa and the water shortage in September 2022.
  

I remember the "almonds cause the Western drought" story, which seemed to be everywhere about 10 years ago. I hear that said to this day. 

I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about alfafa, until I read Radley Balko's story I linked to in late 2022.

Photo by John Comloquoy from the Wikimedia Commons.