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Related: About this forumThe great northern migration -- of U.S. cattle
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/30/us-cattle-migration-idUSTRE80T07920120130Reuters) - For more than a century, through a dozen dry spells when lakes disappeared and the land died, thousands of cows from the Swenson Land & Cattle Co have roamed the fields of Texas.
Yet the drought currently ravaging the southern Plains has done what the Dust Bowl could not: chased them off this land and driven them more than 600 miles north to Nebraska.
Now, as the worst drought in a century stretches into its second year, these ranchers and many of their peers are herding their animals in record numbers to the Cornhusker State and other points north, in search of grazing land that is not parched - a shift that is fueling a dramatic economic and cultural reshaping of the U.S. livestock industry.
-snip-
In cattle-car convoys that wind along routes cowboys used in the 1800s, this migration is also a stark illustration of the myriad threats facing the world's future food supply: intense competition for land; increasing demands on limited water resources; and the growing threat of volatile weather.
-snip-
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The great northern migration -- of U.S. cattle (Original Post)
highplainsdem
Jan 2012
OP
msongs
(67,441 posts)1. eat less beef and none of this would be necessary nt
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)2. Interesting, the myriad ways climate change is re-shaping the way we live.
thanks for posting this article.
pscot
(21,024 posts)4. This will put cattlemen and wheat growers in direct competition
for water from the Ogallala aquifer.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)6. Ah, competition - as in ...
"Who will be the first to complain about the poisoning of it by the combination
of tar sand pipelines and natural gas extraction and demand that their profits
are subsidised by the government ahead of any plans to sort out drinking
water for the people"?
Oh I love it when a clusterf*ck comes together!
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)5. This may be good news for the Canadian cattle industry
A lot of agriculture is going to move towards the poles over the coming years, as previously inhospitable areas become suitable for growing things that they couldn't sustain years earlier.