Does the Western Megadrought Mean the End of Cheap Cheese and Ice Cream?

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Arts, History, Food

4.7 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Imagine a summer's day without the jingle of the ice-cream truck, a pizza without its bubbling layer of melted cheesy goodness, or even a bowl of cereal without milk. It’s a shocking prospect, for sure, but the threat to these delights is perhaps even more surprising: The fact that Americans enjoy more than three times their body-weight in dairy products each year is, in no small part, due to a water-hungry plant that’s frequently, if counterintuitively, grown in the desert. That plant is alfalfa, and it makes up at least half of the diet of dairy cows all over the world. So why are we growing alfalfa in the arid American Southwest, and watering it from the Colorado River—both of which, as you may have heard on the news, are becoming drier with every passing day? To find out, Gastropod went on a good old-fashioned road trip for some field reporting (literally, in an alfalfa field) and talked to farmers, economists, plant experts, journalists, and exporters about where this surprisingly important plant fits in to a warming world—and how we can prevent a future lacking in lactose without also drying up the West. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	A water crisis on the Colorado River is getting worse.
0:06.6	Yeah, new federal forecasts show the nation's two largest reservoirs.
0:11.7	Are at record lows they are both on the Colorado River in the American West and they put
0:15.8	the water supply of 40 million people in jeopardy.
0:20.3	This is Lake Beat at historic lows.
0:23.2	The so-called bathtub ring showing where the water level used to be.
0:27.5	It's a crisis on the Colorado.
0:29.8	The nation's largest reservoirs are rapidly retreating.
0:33.4	Western states are being warned to drastically cut their water use.
0:38.3	This crisis should not be news to most of you because it is in the news.
0:42.9	Especially out in Los Angeles where I live, all we've seen all summer are pictures of bathtub
0:48.6	rings around empty reservoirs and dry, brown, parched landscapes.
0:54.3	The American West is in a mega drought and the Colorado River is disappearing in front
0:59.0	of our eyes.
1:00.0	Here's the surprising part of the story.
1:01.8	This is also a food crisis because it turns out that 70% of Colorado River water goes
1:06.8	to agriculture and we all over the country eat the food that the West grows.
1:11.0	Lettuces, almonds, all your fruit and veggies really.
1:14.5	But also, and this is the part most people don't know, your cheese, your ice cream and the
1:19.3	milk in your cereal bowl.
1:21.2	Lots of that relies on Colorado River Wotu too.
1:24.5	It's not because we just spray Colorado River water over a cow's in California to keep
	...

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