2011, the State of California Has Been

¶ … 2011, the state of California has been in a drought condition. Recently, the media has been abuzz due to the governor's legislation to curtail domestic water use. The effort to curtail water use is a noble one. However, the governor needs to focus more on the real culprit: agribusiness. Because the state is the nation's largest agriculture producer by far, the governor of California has not imposed any restrictions on agriculture. Yet something needs to be done to change the methods by which the United States supplies itself with food. Because meat is linked to serious health problems, ethical issues, and environmental problems, a new policy should curtail factory farming.

Agro-Business Causes Drought

The drought in California highlights some of the problems related to food production and processing. Agriculture uses more than 80% of the state's total water (Sherman, 2015). Even if the current drought situation can be managed without changing agro-business, public policy must eventually come to terms with the unsustainability and stupidity of the current factory-farming model. As Lurie (2015) points out, the alfalfa used to feed cows is consuming the bulk of agricultural use water. It is not just the feed for animals that causes factory animal farming to be the culprits of the drought. As Sherman (2015) points out, California also produces a large quantity of the nation's food: about 11% of it. A long-term solution to effective food policy is necessary, and it must include a harsh reduction of the amount of agricultural land devoted to meat production. Meat production is a major cause of the drought in California, and viewed in this way, it is obvious that Americans are producing, processing and consuming too much meat (Lurie, 2015). Legislation should curtail meat eating by radically transforming the factory farming industry.

Agro-Business Is Unethical

Meat is an unethical industry on several levels. For one, animals in factory farms live in deplorable overcrowded conditions and are given hormones and antibiotics to help them withstand the diseases they get from living in proximity to one another (Gossard & York, 2003). New legislation should transform the living conditions for the animals, and mandate that factory farms cannot operate any more in their current conditions. Consuming far less water than they do now, the factory farms of the future would be more ethical because they would be sustainable, and the agro-business would operate less out of greed and more out of a desire to create a sustainable and egalitarian world. Current farmers can diversity into other areas with support from the government if they need to, because all the money freed up from overconsumption of meat could be channeled into healthier pursuits.

Reducing Meat Consumption Improves Public Health

Another reason to curtail meat production in California and elsewhere is for public health purposes. Americans eat too much meat, and it is taxing the health care system. According to Goldbohm, et al. (1994), meat consumption is linked to cancers like colon cancers. Meat eating should not be a regular thing, but people feel the right to eat meat. As a result, too many people are also obese. Fast food models are the problem, whereas small restaurants using organic meat can show that people can eat meat on special occasions.