<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>hosh</author><text>First, feed lots are a blight. Feed lots are not the only way to raise livestock.&lt;p&gt;Second, there is very much a way to manage water while ranching — the main thing is to have the herds help you maintain healthy soil (which retains and regulates surface water), rather than destroying it like in feed lots. You make sure you can move them to a different section of the land.&lt;p&gt;Third, livestock and crops can co-exist onsite, and there are mutually beneficial processes between the two. Most farmers and ranchers do one or the other. Combined with notill and letting limited grazing on fallow land, what would be toxic runoffs from manure turns into adding fertilizer back into fallow lands.&lt;p&gt;Fourth, price of meat should reflect the added cost. People keep using feedlots because they want meat factories and cheap meat.&lt;p&gt;Solutions already exist.</text><parent_chain><item><author>hombre_fatal</author><text>Interesting lack of discussion around animal agriculture in these comments. Closest convo we get is about alfalfa for horse food.&lt;p&gt;Hmm, wouldn’t want to address the elephant in the room though.</text></item><item><author>nielsbot</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve heard almonds need a lot of water, but I think the biggest culprit is exported alfalfa.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;environment&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;colorado-drought-water-alfalfa-farmers-conservation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;environment&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;colorado...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>Kalium</author><text>&amp;gt; Of course without agriculture we&amp;#x27;d all starve to death, so banning farming is no solution.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re absolutely right.&lt;p&gt;Yet, much like the &amp;quot;No Farms No Food&amp;quot; bumper-sticker slogan, there&amp;#x27;s some rhetorical sleight of hand going on here. Those stickers are correct in a general sense, but the slogan is rarely deployed in a general sense. It&amp;#x27;s generally used to defend uneconomical farming in environmentally questionable places.&lt;p&gt;Similarly, you&amp;#x27;re completely correct in every single way that we need agriculture and banning it is not a solution. However, there&amp;#x27;s perhaps a substantial difference between banning all agriculture everywhere and matching the agriculture in a location to the resources available to support it. If there&amp;#x27;s inadequate water or sun to grow crops that need lots of both, perhaps that location is not the best for those crops.&lt;p&gt;Agriculture is essential for human survival. It&amp;#x27;s possible that growing almonds in areas with sharply limited and poorly managed water is less than essential for human survival.</text></item><item><author>dreamcompiler</author><text>Absolutely true. Without agriculture, there would be plenty of water for residential uses. Of course without agriculture we&amp;#x27;d all starve to death, so banning farming is no solution.&lt;p&gt;But one thing we can and should do immediately is stop (effectively) exporting huge amounts of water from Arizona to Saudi Arabia for free. That&amp;#x27;s very low-hanging fruit.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;saudi-company-fondomonte-arizona-ground-water-crop-alfalfa&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;saudi-company-fondomonte-arizon...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>lucidguppy</author><text>This stuff is good - but it&amp;#x27;s penny wise.&lt;p&gt;Agriculture is outright wasteful of water.  California agriculture consumes 80% of the state&amp;#x27;s water.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;water.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;Programs&amp;#x2F;Water-Use-And-Efficiency&amp;#x2F;Agricultural-Water-Use-Efficiency&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;water.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;Programs&amp;#x2F;Water-Use-And-Efficiency&amp;#x2F;Agric...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Its an environmental equivalent of Amdahl&amp;#x27;s law - spending so much effort to make a small portion of the water use efficient when we can work far less to make agriculture more efficient.  Of course its all because of lobbying.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Cities turn to ‘extreme’ water recycling</title><url>https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-site-distributed-premise-graywater-blackwater-recycling</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>jarebear6expepj</author><text>Luckily horses do not _need_ alfalfa. Farmers love growing alfalfa because if you give it sun and water in the right setting you can get damn near 14 cuts off a field of it in one year. This by comparison puts a grass hay field or even a nice neutral horse feed, Timothy grass, to shame. Alfalfa is a nutrient dense power bar that is given to horses kept in boxes. I would argue a happy horse would have a range of grassland to graze on, vs compressed cubes or squares of dense, sugary alfalfa that is replacing a normal ration.&lt;p&gt;tldr: alfalfa is an unnatural food for unnaturally kept horses&lt;p&gt;source: have horses on range land.</text><parent_chain><item><author>hombre_fatal</author><text>Interesting lack of discussion around animal agriculture in these comments. Closest convo we get is about alfalfa for horse food.&lt;p&gt;Hmm, wouldn’t want to address the elephant in the room though.</text></item><item><author>nielsbot</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve heard almonds need a lot of water, but I think the biggest culprit is exported alfalfa.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;environment&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;colorado-drought-water-alfalfa-farmers-conservation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;environment&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;colorado...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>Kalium</author><text>&amp;gt; Of course without agriculture we&amp;#x27;d all starve to death, so banning farming is no solution.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re absolutely right.&lt;p&gt;Yet, much like the &amp;quot;No Farms No Food&amp;quot; bumper-sticker slogan, there&amp;#x27;s some rhetorical sleight of hand going on here. Those stickers are correct in a general sense, but the slogan is rarely deployed in a general sense. It&amp;#x27;s generally used to defend uneconomical farming in environmentally questionable places.&lt;p&gt;Similarly, you&amp;#x27;re completely correct in every single way that we need agriculture and banning it is not a solution. However, there&amp;#x27;s perhaps a substantial difference between banning all agriculture everywhere and matching the agriculture in a location to the resources available to support it. If there&amp;#x27;s inadequate water or sun to grow crops that need lots of both, perhaps that location is not the best for those crops.&lt;p&gt;Agriculture is essential for human survival. It&amp;#x27;s possible that growing almonds in areas with sharply limited and poorly managed water is less than essential for human survival.</text></item><item><author>dreamcompiler</author><text>Absolutely true. Without agriculture, there would be plenty of water for residential uses. Of course without agriculture we&amp;#x27;d all starve to death, so banning farming is no solution.&lt;p&gt;But one thing we can and should do immediately is stop (effectively) exporting huge amounts of water from Arizona to Saudi Arabia for free. That&amp;#x27;s very low-hanging fruit.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;saudi-company-fondomonte-arizona-ground-water-crop-alfalfa&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;saudi-company-fondomonte-arizon...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>lucidguppy</author><text>This stuff is good - but it&amp;#x27;s penny wise.&lt;p&gt;Agriculture is outright wasteful of water.  California agriculture consumes 80% of the state&amp;#x27;s water.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;water.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;Programs&amp;#x2F;Water-Use-And-Efficiency&amp;#x2F;Agricultural-Water-Use-Efficiency&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;water.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;Programs&amp;#x2F;Water-Use-And-Efficiency&amp;#x2F;Agric...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Its an environmental equivalent of Amdahl&amp;#x27;s law - spending so much effort to make a small portion of the water use efficient when we can work far less to make agriculture more efficient.  Of course its all because of lobbying.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Cities turn to ‘extreme’ water recycling</title><url>https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-site-distributed-premise-graywater-blackwater-recycling</url></story>