The Texas panhandle’s dairy industry is raising questions about water usage, and it has everything to do with the nature of the business, according to Ryan Cody of KFDA News Channel. The large quantity of dairy cows in the high plains is something relatively new.
“Going back 15 years you’re getting to where it was just starting to develop here in the panhandle. There’s always been some dairy production but nothing like it is now,” says Darren Turley of the Texas Association of Dairymen.
And that’s raising questions about how to better preserve one of the least renewable resources we have.
“We will see less water going towards irrigation of crops and more water proportionally being used in the dairy and cattle feeding industry,” says agronomist David Bauer.
That’s for two reasons. The first being that dairy cows flat out drink a lot of water. “A cow produces milk. And to produce that fluid she has to ingest fluid. And so a cow drinks water to produce milk. Summer time heat and what not.”
The second reason being what they eat.
“The amount of water in corn grain is about 15 percent. It’s about 70 percent in corn silage.”
Which is everything in the corn plant besides the ear of corn. And that’s what dairy cows must eat to produce like they’re supposed to. Fueling the on going debate about how to use the water we still have in an efficient way.
