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Kansas State University has published a water conservation guide for Kansas’ livestock industry, with the help of a company that advises agricultural producers using military intelligence and market research.
The livestock industry generates nearly half of the $10 billion Kansas earns from agriculture each year, but much of Kansas’s industry activity takes place in water-scarce areas as the Ogallala Aquifer in western Kansas continues to sink.
“Many of these cattle are fed on feedlots in western Kansas that overlie the Ogallala High Plains Aquifer, and the Ogallala Aquifer is a dwindling resource,” said Susan Metzger of the K-State Water Institute. “We use more water from it each year than we replenish, and so we’re constantly looking for ways to preserve the Ogallala and extend its useful life.”
What does the report achieve?
Although water conservation is an increasing priority for agriculture in Kansas, the approach has been somewhat fragmented. The framework unveiled Tuesday at K-State is a novel approach that includes stakeholders from all parts of the value chain in the effort.
“This is the first time we’ve really brought the beef industry and the feedlot industry into a room with their irrigator manufacturers, their meat packers and their bankers to talk about improvements along the supply chain,” Metzger said.
Most agricultural producers are open to changing their irrigation practices to better protect water supplies. Aimpoint Research – the company that assisted K-State – said 80% of farmers are interested in conserving, and 7% are currently participating in a water conservation program.
The report identifies stakeholders in the supply chain – from agricultural associations and crop producers to government officials and researchers – and sets out the goals they can achieve to reduce water use overall.
“The recommendations are not simple,” said Mark Purdy, chief operations officer of Aimpoint Research. “They may look that way on paper, but it will take time and a concerted effort.”
Existing water protection programs
The report recommends easier access to existing conservation programs in the state. In Kansas, Local Enhanced Management Areas are an oft-touted success story. They allow local water distribution units to participate in water conservation efforts in return for more flexibility in how and when they use their water rights.
The most successful LEMA in northeast Kansas saved 30% more water under the program.
“We can show on many levels that they are using much less water. The decline in the water table has greatly reduced, and they are still profitable,” said Brownie Wilson, a geologist with the Kansas Geological Survey. “They are still economically viable doing what they are doing.”
There are also water conservation areas that function similarly to LEMAs but are established for individual farms. However, they tend to be concentrated in certain areas.
Agriculture is already reducing water use in livestock farming. According to Metzger, the amount of water needed to produce a pound of beef has fallen by almost 40 percent over the past 30 years.
“Thirty years ago, we estimated that it took about 440 gallons of water to produce a pound of boneless beef,” she said. “Today, it takes about 275 gallons of water to produce a pound. So that’s an increase of almost 40% in about 30 years, and we’ve done that by increasing the meat content, improving the efficiency of our livestock farming and feeding, and most importantly, using less water to irrigate the fields.”
Barriers to market entry
There are many reasons that can prevent a farmer from engaging in water conservation. Sometimes, significant financial investment is needed to improve water infrastructure. Some may be more interested in short-term gains or may not want to take the risk of switching to less water-dependent crops.
People also just carry on farming the way they have done throughout their working lives. Purdy said he has had conversations with farmers across the state who are sometimes unaware of the impacts pumping water has on the Ogallala.
“There is a fundamental misunderstanding about the lack of awareness and the real impact,” he said. “So it’s my water, I pump it and what I do has no real meaning.”
Modernization of water use
Livestock farming itself consumes only a relatively small proportion of the state’s water. Water consumption in feedlots is slightly less than 2% of the state’s water.
Nevertheless, experts are calling for greater efficiency in the cattle industry.
“A feed mill could potentially achieve some incremental changes and efficiency improvements on its premises by recycling water or reducing waste from overflow tanks,” Metzger said.
But most of the actual water savings will come from irrigation systems, which account for about 90% of the state’s total water use.
“We need to focus on water users and how we can support them,” Purdy said, “and meet them where they are.”
The condition of the Ogallala Aquifer
Water supplies in eastern Kansas come primarily from surface water collected from lakes and rivers, but further west, Kansas communities increasingly rely on groundwater pumped from underwater layers.
In western Kansas, 97% of the water used is groundwater, 90% of the water is used for irrigation, and 85% of the groundwater is used for irrigation in the High Plains Aquifer region, which stretches from South Dakota to central Texas.
In Kansas, the High Plains Aquifer is divided into three parts: the Ogallala in the southwest, the Equus Beds Aquifer in south-central Kansas, and the Great Bend Prairie Aquifer in the northwest. There are conservation efforts in each section of the High Plains Aquifer, but depletion is most evident in the Ogallala.
“The Ogallala side is trending toward decline. It’s just a question of extent,” said Wilson of the Kansas Geological Survey.
To return the Ogallala to historic levels would require decades of recharge at much lower usage. Wilson said the water savings recommended 20 years ago were much more stringent, about 80%, but with a better water monitoring system. But the recommendations now are more focused on sustainability than recharge to historic levels.
“These initial reductions are not really sustainable, but they will definitely stabilize water levels for decades,” Wilson said. “And that gives people more time to adjust in terms of their farming practices, water use, crop genetics, etc. And then you buy time to do what you want to do.”
Military reconnaissance in agriculture
Aimpoint analyzes food trends from a national security perspective. In his presentation Tuesday, Purdy pointed out how food insecurity is linked to social unrest, how food imports and exports can alter diplomatic relationships and how the agricultural capacity of Brazil, Russia and China is growing.
“This is your national security briefing,” he said. “It’s not a quick briefing on agriculture, it’s a briefing on national security.”
The aim of the program was not to secure the American food supply chain by isolating it, but to strengthen it against external pressure and to assert economic and diplomatic strength.
“In the United States, it’s the means to not only produce what we need,” Purdy said. “It’s the means to produce more, and that’s what we need to keep an eye on on the front lines.”
What happens next?
The framework does not set out specific targets, which need to be set at a local and grassroots level. The research conducted for the report discourages a top-down approach and relies on leaders across the agricultural sector to engage in different ways.
“This framework really just provides us with a mechanism to get started. So in many ways, this is just the beginning,” Purdy said. “With this framework, leadership is going to be key to all of this. The framework looks at organizations, but also the value chain, from the input providers to our water consumers to our water users and the entire value chain.”
