Nobody wants to eat cactus-fed cows, remember the grain/grass ratio.
Don’t forget a lot of our most productive ag areas in the country-The San Joaquin Valley, the San Bernardino/Riverside area, the LA Basin-were deserts. It took water from the nearby mountains to grow crops. You get year round varieties of fruits and vegetables. The alternative is having nothing but potatoes and root vegetables during the wintertime.
If you don't have enough water, you'll have no choice but to get used to the alternative.
Water management is crucial out West, especially with the state of a lot of the aquifers.
If you live out West and you're not trying to shift to less water-intensive agriculture by this point, you're dadgum foolish.
I see your point.
No need to needle us about it.
My.family has raised cattle.since 1731 on land granted from Philip.V in what was at the time New Spain.. I assure you that people way cactus raised cattle all the time. Nearly every cow that makes it to a feed lot was pasture raised for most of its life. You.absolutely can raise cattle on cactus and finish them the last few weeks on grain and I would.challenge someone in a blind test to pick out which was cactus range raised vs sagebrush range raised vs oak mesquite savannah raised vs bunch grass rangeland raised. If you corn finish it doesn’t matter where the cow was ranged on. I speak with nearly 300 years of cattle people in my bloodlines and a half steer in two very large freezers in the second garage from same land and the fam.
For pure grass fed beef which is a totally different product you still can range them on burnt off paddle cactus and finish in pasture with trucked in bales and range cubes. Agave makes fine silage you have to limit access or they will.get bloat as it’s so sweet. It’s literally agave syrup sweet. During dry years most South Texas ranchers burn off paddle cactus for their cattle to eat its standard practice.
You can also coppice mesquite to make “tree hay” or run a hydroaxe through it and make piles of ground up tree bits cattle will tear up either once the spines are ground up gone. The beans of mesquite are also high in protein but to much >50% of feed intake of mesquite beans but not leaves or branches is toxic to cattle but goats can chow down at will same for damn feral demon hogs they tear into mesquite beans once they drop. You hydroaxe’em before the beans have time to develop and feed the piles of tree bits to the cows in a year you have coppiced mesquites with groups of stems ready to be cut again and again on a one to three year rotation. Mesquite makes damn fine honey too the beans are edible by humans and taste like roasted soybeans when cooked.
I would wager in Texas grocery stores a good bit of the cattle that makes it out of the feed lots near Lubbock where raised on cactus,oak,mesquite range lands in South and West Texas and for sure ate paddle cactus for part if not most of their lives on said range lands.