
Draining the Food Bank of the Future
[ad_1] More than 1 million years ago, geologic actions created what is now known as the Ogallala aquifer, also known as the High Plains aquifer. Spanning 174,000 miles and eight states — Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming — the reservoir supports the water needs of nearly one-fifth of wheat, corn, cotton and cattle production in the U.S.,1 but it’s quickly becoming depleted. The aquifer, which underlies about 112 million acres,2 is being tapped by farmers at rates that can’t be naturally sustained. The water-intensive needs of irrigated crops and concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) livestock are much greater than the replenishment offered by rain and snow. The result is that 89 trillion gallons of water were drained from the Ogallala from 1900 to 2008,…