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Is that actually true? The cows in the fields by the side of the highways of middle America, yes. sure. But what percentage of our meat comes from them and what percentage comes from the shoulder to shoulder cows in factory farms?
The US department of agriculture tends to be biased in a pro farming direction right? So this should be a reasonable source.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/sector-at-a-glance/
Now... you may be wondering- what's a specialized feedlot? Do these cows really never graze? My searches indicate that feedlots generally aim to rapidly fatten cows on cultivated grains, but sometimes, cows are started in their youth on grazing, before being moved to concentrated feed lots for grain-finishing.
I'm not quite invested enough to do a full research essay quantifying the number of calories that come from "free" grass. But it seems safe to say that-
Is just false or misleading... At least in the United States. If your country's industry is a pastoral utopia then power to you.
Ok yes. The grain finished ones are starting on grasslands, you may well be the best kind of correct (technically correct). But then they bulk up on grains. What we really care about is how much non-free grain we use per cow and how many people we could feed with that land and labor. In fact... the 'free' grasslands also have opportunity costs, since land is a finite and often fungible resource for farming.
No, we don't, not really. We don't have a food shortage in the US, nor a lack of land (we have a lack of land in some spots desirable for humans to live, but there aren't many cattle in SF or NYC. Some in Newark, NJ but that's much less desirable. Nor are there cornfields there.) Worrying overmuch about those is optimizing for something that is, at this time, not much of a constraint.
Artificially-grown meat isn't free either. Sure, you eliminate the labor of some number of cowhands and slaughterhouse workers (and they won't thank you for it), but you're going to need meat factory workers, some of whom are probably more expensive labor than the cowhands and slaughterhouse workers. And all those calories which went into the cow in the form of grain to fatten it? You still need them; there's no free lunch here. Either you're still getting the energy from grain (which means you need to process the grain further, since the ruminant won't be doing it for you), or you're getting it from some other source such as natural gas.
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This was my primary point. That most cows use mediocre land for much of their lives. Some probably do not. Its a big country. There are weird rents all over the place. But pure grain fed beef is way above average market price by 2-3x from what I see.
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Factory farms for beef basically do not exist, especially not in the united states -- the feedlots that you mention take cows that have lived on grasslands their entire lives and fatten them up a bit. This makes them, well, fattier which humans prefer, and finishes them a little faster, but you could absolutely feed the demand for beef on grass alone with minimal cost impact. (particularly compared to artificial meat)
The free grasslands look like forest/scrub -- farming other things there is not economically viable, otherwise they wouldn't be free grasslands.
You have been grievously, grievously misinformed -- please don't spread it here.
Um. Ok. I've updated.
Having updated, I yield to anti-dan that they are more than just technichally correct. They are also correct. I'll also yield to you, for now- that the grazing fields can't be repurposed. I'm skeptical of this but I don't have the means to do a counterfactual analysis on every field at this time.
But as for factory farms, clearly you have a much stricter definition. I acknowledge that most cattle are not factory farmed their whole lives, and that the cattle in feedlots have more elbow room than in chicken factory farms.
but whatever you want to call these things: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Five+Rivers+Cattle+Feeding-+Interstate+Feeders/@42.2862795,-113.3138525,1875m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x80aaf6984afed193:0x249cafeffb8a8530!8m2!3d42.2831921!4d-113.3150227!16s%2Fg%2F1thkxj9_?entry=ttu
definitely exist, and are representative of the largest cattle finishing operations. In fact this is one of them. Now. the number of months spent here vary.
This company for instance claims that their cattle spend spring and summer grazing, then they spend 120 days in the feed lot. https://www.lazyt.com/the-story-of-your-beef
That's still over a third of their lives. And these numbers are fairly standard. 97% of cattle are grain finished, and that typically means something in the range of 6-15 months grazing followed by 4-6 months finishing. Depending on breed and operation.
Not all feed lots are the same, but the highest volume ones do look like this.
There. Is that accurate?
Sure, it's pretty much how it's done in the US.
But it needs to be super clear that this is not in any way instrumental to the production of large amounts of beef -- if those cattle stayed on the range for four months instead of going to the feedlot, they would still constitute a lot of beef. Somewhat less, and quite a bit less marketable (to US tastes) -- but if you banned feedlots tomorrow you would still be able to afford a burger.
On this part I guess you just need to spend some time out west? Most of the time when you run across ranging beef cattle it's not even anywhere you might call a 'field' -- it's like literal woods where I am, and in other parts borderline desert. You don't need to believe me, but you could maybe cross-reference BLM leases (in the US) with Google Earth or something? Working ranches will keep some self-owned pasture around that's more fertile, and grow some hay and stuff for winter feed -- but water is a problem out here. Hay will grow a crop a year with ~zero inputs and no irrigation -- I don't know too many crops for human consumption like that.
If you wanna talk about high-impact use of fertile land, I'd turn your gaze towards dairy cattle. Their lives seem pretty pleasant, but goddamn they eat a lot of corn and produce a lot of shit. The footprint of the cows isn't that much, but the acres and acres of silage and alfalfa could be better used if you ask me. People seem to like milk for some reason though.
There are startups working on synthetic milk. Seems like it would be easier to make than synthetic meat. At least nobody should complain about texture.
Like I say I'm not the hugest fan of intensive dairying, so fine if true -- but I do think they will run into trouble with energy inputs. One cow can generate a truly shocking amount of milk, and they don't really eat that much. The problem (to me) is that the demand for milk products is also truly shocking -- so anyway you slice it there's going to be some shocking resource usage going on.
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