Most of the beef people eat is from cows fed corn and soy using an industrial system. Because you have to feed maybe 20 kilos of corn/soy to a cow to produce 1 kilos of beef, the emissions from the industrial processes of growing and shipping all that food are already say 20x higher than plant foods before you even considered what happens in the farm gate. Rainforests are cut down in Brazil to provide space to cows, and other ecosystems and habitats are destroyed elsewhere.
Most cows are not grass fed their whole lives. Defending cows using grass fed cows is a weak argument unless you yourself carefully investigate the supply chain of all the meat you eat (and only eat the grass fed beef), which you don't, virtually no-one does, because it's impractical.
In any case, grass-fed cows are destructive to ecosystems, and use too much land. A move to more grass fed cows would use up a lot of land. But let's be clear: grass fed cows are a distraction. If you want to argue this further, we should focus the argument on the cows that are in the industrial system, which accounts for most of the meat.
If you are able to confirm to me that you ONLY eat grass fed meat, and explain how you do that, then perhaps we can debate it. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to do so.
Jamie, if you have to feed 20kg of corn to get 1 kg of beef you had better stop immediately. 6.5 kg is the actual benchmark for corn fed beef, and if you dont believe me just ponder the fact that a prepared corn meal for cattle would cost around 20p per kg which equates to £1.30 to produce 1 kg of beef (live weight), current value of liveweight beef is around £1.90 / kg. Even a simple farmer can see that if 20 kg of corn were required ( £4.00) then every kg of beef produced would be losing £2.10.
Furthermore, the majority of the corn fed will be locally grown, i.e. in the same country or region that the cattle are reared, simply because the cost of transport is a significant factor. The soya ( or other protein source) that is added to the mix to provide a feed of the optimum nutrition value will usually be made up of the by products from the soya after it has been used for its primary purpose. Very little soy is grown exclusively for livestock feed, the economics of doing so just dont add up.
The rainforests that were cut down in Brazil were the resullt of financial incentives that were made available in the past, I dont think those incentives are available any longer, but if you can prove that this is still continuing then please provide the evidence, I would join you in condemming the action.
Palm oil production, something which was massively increased when animal fat was thought to be harmful to human health, has unfortunately resulted in the massive destruction of rainforests in other parts of the world, resulting in the near extinction of species such as the orangutan. Fortunately now that animal fat has been found to be not harmful the increasing destruction of those rain forests for a product that is used exclusively for human benefit has been curtailed.
And so, in a country like the UK, where the climate doesnt allow the production of protein crops suitable for human consumption, the beef industry is environmently friendly in that it produces a nutrient rich, sustainable food source using locally grown crops.
All the beef I eat is 80% grass fed, guaranteed. And all the food it has consumed has travelled less than a mile. The carbon that they expell will be reabsorbed by the crop that they eat.
If you have any other questions about beef production, feel free to ask.. If you feel the need to comment on beef production, then look for independent data so that your claims dont appear so outlandish.
