Colorado, a major beef and wheat producer, has an agricultural economy worth about $47 billion. The Colorado Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association said produce, grown on more than 90,000 acres statewide, contributes nearly $485 million to the economy, which doesn’t include the benefits as the products move through the distribution system.
From the Denver Post.
As of 2021, the Gross Domestic Product of Colorado is $421 billion (with a labor force of 2,819,800 workers), so the agricultural economy's share of Colorado's overall economic production is about 11% (using about 15% of Colorado's labor force).
Wheat, corn, sorghum, and proso millet were the largest agricultural products by acres farmed. Hay ($1 billon), corn ($850 million), and wheat ($460 million) were the largest farmed products by value sold. Colorado is also a significant beef producer with 659,000 cows in 2021. Colorado was the fourth largest marijuana producer in 2021 by sales at $460 million. . . .
Colorado's agriculture supports a $47 billion dollar economy with more than 426,000 employees and $1.7 billion in exports.
Farming and ranching takes 32 million acres of Colorado land. Colorado's agriculture consumes 88% of the state's water or 4.7 million acre feet. The northeast of the state has the most agricultural business.
The total number of jobs and economic contribution in this count, however, includes "food industry" workers such as grocery store employees and workers in factories that process food.
The statistics on water use don't break it out between cattle operations, other livestock operations, and horticulture. I know that cattle operations use a disproportionately large share of Colorado's agricultural land. I suspect that cattle operations make up a big share of the dollar contributions and of the water use relative to the dollar contributions as well, but I don't know that for fact.
There are 38,900 farms and ranches in Colorado.
Fruits and vegetables make up a little more than 1% of the total agricultural economy in Colorado, and about 0.12% of the total Colorado economy. Fruits and vegetables are grown on about 0.3% of Colorado's agricultural land.
Fruit and vegetable growers contribute about the same amount to Colorado's economy as marijuana growing does. About half of the marijuana grown in Colorado is produced in the City and County of Denver in about 100 acres of indoor marijuana grows.
See also the following sources relied upon by Wikipedia and quoted here:
- "US Food and Ag Industries" (PDF). CO2020 FactSheet. University of Arkansas. Retrieved June 7, 2022.
- "Colorado Agriculture Brochure" (PDF). Colorado. Retrieved June 7, 2022.
- "Water Uses". Colorado Water. Colorado State University. Retrieved June 7, 2022.
7 comments:
Cattle agriculture tends to use a lot of land everywhere, since it remains a user of lower-quality land. Even steers finished on feedlots generally come from ranches that pasture the mother cows. In many cases there is no other practical use for that land.
@tombridgeland
The use of the water is frequently more of a concern than the use of the land.
Interesting... I didn't think that cattle were big users of water per se, compared to row crops or hay. If it's hay, is that double counting the water use? Since some of the hay is exported from the state.
See, e.g.,
"It takes approximately 1,847 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef — that’s enough water to fill 39 bathtubs all the way to the top. For only one pound of beef? How can that be possible? A beef cow eats thousands of pounds of grass, corn, grains and soybeans during her lifetime, and water is necessary to grow this diet. That’s why the production of animal products like meat, dairy and eggs requires more water than producing fruits (115 gallons of water per pound) and vegetables (39 gallons of water per pound)." From https://www.denverwater.org/tap/whats-beef-water
and https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/
and arguing (not really convincingly) to the contrary: https://www.sacredcow.info/blog/beef-is-not-a-water-hog/
and a more multidimensional analysis at https://www.watercalculator.org/footprint/water-footprint-beef-industrial-pasture/
Hay is basically used as rations for cows in the small periods of time when no grass pasture can be found for them. But it isn't very cost effective (hay is surprisingly expensive). Hay is more often used for horses because the owners of a horse often can't easily stable it somewhere else when local grass is inadequate (what's the point of having a horse if it isn't close enough to ride it) and because horse owners tend to have less land available for grazing per animal.
While I'm working on my water/beef email, the relative small size of the agricultural segment implies that it might be possible to just buy the farmer/ranchers out. Or a more market based approach, allow farmers to split their water rights into different traches. So a municipality (or the state) could purchase the option to a portion of a farmer's water rights in a drought year (or whenever they wanted to wanted to exercise the option).
@Guy
Most of that is theoretically possible, but the transaction costs and inertia impeded them.
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