Or maybe stop raising animals where they need their food artificially supplied and then growing that food in a desert?
There are places where cattle can free-range and graze, and grass can be cut during the summer to feed them in the winter. I live next door to such a farm. I doubt they use any water that doesn't fall from the sky.
I agree that meat can be raised humanely and sustainably in the way you describe, but if all animal husbandry were like this, only the well-off could afford to eat meat.
Moral issues aside, this would be completely politically unpalatable (as is the GP’s suggestion of somehow getting veganism to be adopted on a mass scale). We need to consider politically viable solutions (e.g. researching more efficient methods to grow tastier artificial meat), not theoretically correct but politically impossible solutions that are thus utterly unattainable.
"We need to consider politically viable solutions (e.g. researching more efficient methods to grow tastier artificial meat)"
It's already here. I tasted an "impossible burger" the other day that tasted very convincing. There are tons of other meat substitutes that are very tasty and convincing, and still very tasty even when not quite like meat.
Ok, not absolutely everything that can be made from meat can yet be simulated absolutely convincingly, but do we really need 100% verisimilitude before switching away from meat?
Many people just haven't even tried the many meat substitutes out there, so can't imagine they could get by without meat. But they can.
There are places where cattle can free-range and graze, and grass can be cut during the summer to feed them in the winter. I live next door to such a farm. I doubt they use any water that doesn't fall from the sky.