Compare it to alfalfa and you’ll be laughing your ass off at how much water alfalfa consumes.

~340 acres of alfalfa in California growing year round uses as much water as Google’s data center in The Dalles uses in one year.

That data center used 550M gallons for evaporative cooling in 2025, which is 1687 acre-feet of water.

One acre of alfalfa in California uses ~5 acre-feet of water per acre of alfalfa per year. There are around a million acres of alfalfa grown in California, or 5 million acre-feet of water per year on alfalfa. Which is used to feed cows.

Feed cows in places without the water and sun to grow this stuff locally. Which is tantamount to exporting water from the American West which will eventually be turned into a desert. We effectively can't be trusted to govern our natural resources more than 5 years out.

California’s alfalfa is primarily for export.