Another Number to Remember: The Water to Grow Beef
Water Number: It takes around 16,000 liters (or kilograms) of water (and sometimes up to 70,000 kilograms) to make a single kilogram of beef.
In the water world there is growing interest in measuring and reporting how much water is needed to produce "things" -- goods and services that humans desire. See the table "The Water Content of Things" from the new volume of The World's Water 2008-2009 (Peter Gleick, editor, Island Press, Washington D.C.). Several different tools and approaches have been developed and described, including "virtual water" (most people, including me, credit this concept to Professor Tony Allen of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London); the "water footprint"; and "embedded water." All of these are based on the same idea: it takes water to do things. One of the most remarkable, and most remarked on, numbers to come out of these efforts is the water to produce beef, and so that is my "water number" for today's post.
written by
planetearth
490 days ago
