Can Eating Less Beef and Dairy Help Save the Colorado River?

By Erin Stone

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Western states and the federal government face a looming 2026 deadline to divvy up falling water levels in the Colorado River basin. As overuse and climate change stretch the river thin, research suggests relatively small shifts in global eating patterns could save enough water to fend off steeper cuts for cities and agriculture — and help reduce climate pollution.

Nearly half — 46% — of all the water drawn from the Colorado River goes to growing feed for beef and dairy cows, according to a recent study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. It’s the most detailed analysis yet of how the river’s water is used.

That’s nearly twice as much water as the combined use of every city that relies on the river, including Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

“We could wipe all of the cities off the map that are using Colorado River water, and we would just barely be balancing the water budget,” says Brian Richter, lead author of the study.

That means as states wrestle over how to share the basin’s dwindling water supplies, major cuts will have to come from irrigation for agriculture, Richter says.

The seven Western states that rely on the river — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, California, Arizona and Nevada — are in negotiations over how to make those needed cuts. The current rules for the river, first established more than 100 years ago, expire in 2026.

Currently, the biggest users of Colorado River water are farmers in the Imperial Valley in Southern California.

The region is an agricultural powerhouse. Almost all of the leafy greens and vegetables like broccoli that Americans eat in the winter are grown in the Imperial Valley and next door in Yuma, Ariz.

But for much of the year, the region’s primary crops are alfalfa and other hay crops, which have one primary purpose: feeding beef and dairy cows in the U.S. and around the world. The valley is also home to cattle ranches with hundreds of thousands of cows.

So as the Colorado River becomes increasingly stressed due to all that demand, plus the worsening impacts of climate change, could it be saved if Americans — and the world — ate less beef, cheese and yogurt?

“We advertise ‘take short showers, remove your lawn to save water,’ but we’re not quite advocating diets as a society to save water yet,” says Bill Hasencamp, Colorado River resources manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water from the river to cities across the region.

Individual choices may not have a direct impact on the Colorado River in the short term, because the food system is so complex and global, Hasencamp says. But small changes can add up in the long term.

Farmers in the region are already making changes, largely driven by stricter water regulations. But long-term change, experts say, will also require consumers to change how they eat.

“One person removes one lawn, it doesn't make a difference, but a thousand people starts to make a difference, and a million people makes a huge difference,” Hasencamp says. “It's the same thing with the diet.”

How alfalfa became king

Many farmers in California’s Imperial Valley are already considering the switch from cattle-feed crops to less-water-intensive vegetables and upgrading to equipment that helps them use less water. But making the change is complicated and expensive.

Trevor Tagg, 38, runs his family’s 3,200-acre farm in El Centro in Imperial County with his father and brother. He’s trying to set up the farm for the future at a moment of increasing uncertainty.