Case study - mega dairy and the decline of the Colorado river

A 2023 report by Food and Water Watch on how mega-dairies and the alfalfa farms that feed them are responsible for the decline of the Colorado river.

As of 2022 it was in its 23rd year of drought^[1]

Alfalfa farming consumed an estimated 2.2 trillion gallons of water across the Colorado River Basin states in 2022 alone. Large-scale alfalfa farms (with 1,000 or more acres) guzzled around one-third of this water, despite making up less than 2% of all alfalfa farms in the Basin states.
The 2.5 million dairy cows living on mega-dairies in the Basin states require an estimated 218 million gallons of water every day just for washing and hydration.
Together, the Basin states exceed the national average for irrigation water applied per irrigated acre of farmland by more than 70%, with Arizona using over three times the national average, largely due to water-intensive crops like alfalfa and livestock feed.
About 75% of Lake Mead's decline in the past two decades is attributed to cattle feed irrigation, highlighting the significant impact of animal agriculture on the water crisis.
The report cites a case study where Saudi Arabia's Almarai Company owns 10,000 acres of Arizona farmland, cultivating alfalfa to support dairies in Saudi Arabia, which banned alfalfa cultivation in 2018 to conserve water, exemplifying the unsustainable water use for livestock feed production.
Despite prolonged drought conditions, California's alfalfa production only modestly reduced during the 2011-2017 drought, with some regions even increasing production due to secure senior water rights, demonstrating the reluctance to transition away from water-intensive crops like alfalfa.

How it impacts domestic food security

It may reduce yields of winter crops ^[2]like lettuce and Broccoli
Yuma, Arizona and the Imperial Valley in California together produce more than 90 percent^[3] of the nation’s winter leafy greens.
In 2021