Great! Lets do it all. I'm sure there'd be up-front costs with switching, but the western water crisis isn't getting any better.

I know there are management plans - but I don't know that they're being implemented. There are always challenges with trying to direct industry at the Federal level. You hear about Republicans (incorrectly) claiming that the left wants to "ban cows" in regards to methane production as a greenhouse gas. So you can bet that if this can be used as a political wedge issue, then it will be.

The suggestion I've seen is similar to farms subsidized for leaving fields fallow to keep from overproducing some goods - do that with alfalfa - but then seed producers will be out and cow feed prices will increase as they need to come form farther... basically, there will be those who lose out one way or another - so until it becomes a *financial* crisis, it's not seen as a crisis. Meaning it won't happen until water rationing to farmers gets bad enough (and it's starting to get there).

We. Fucking. Love. Hamburgers.

Vox did a good breakdown on the Colorado River water usage in the western US. We could get every human in the west to bathe only twice a week and it wouldn't make a dent. The ONLY reasonable place to cut water usage is livestock. Notably alfalfa: a particularly water-hungry crop used exclusively to feed livestock... much of it exported overseas.