The African country of Namibia has been suffering from a ravenous drought ever since the President declared a state of emergency in May. While its leaders scramble to find a way to end the crisis, one must consider whether the problem lies much more within.
See, meats like beef or mutton consume the most amount of water by far compared to grains or vegetables. While some water is fed directly to the livestock, the reality is that the vast majority of water consumption in cattle farming is used indirectly, to farm the plants that the animals will be eating. Especially so in a dry spell, where land may not be viable for grazing at all.
And as climate change grows stronger and stronger, these dry spells are likely to persist for months on end.
Even when grazing the cattle, farmers have to contend with wild animals that will compete for food or even attack the farm animals outright. If your cattle is just going to get hunted down by a ravenous wild creature, why even bother raising it in the first place?
The more animals you have, the more resources (especially water!) you’ll need. Now is definitely not the time to have more animals eating away at your precious water supply. Perhaps it is time to switch to a different diet, one where grains and other plants that take up less water is emphasized?
Considering the pervasiveness of meat in the diets of the Namibians, this radical change to fruits and veggies may be hard to stomach for some. But in a crisis like this, people will have to make do with less. Instead of farming crops to feed the animals, why not farm those crops to feed yourselves?
In Namibia, 60,000 farm animals died in the past six months due to water shortages. Maybe the solution is to not have them in the first place.
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