Grain Fed Beef Versus Grass Fed Beef
Animals Are Inefficient Converters of FoodFeed Conversion RatiosFeed:Meat RatiosMainstream Feed Conversion RatiosFCR Mainstream ExamplesMore Comprehensive FCRsEnergy Flows in the Broader Food SystemConclusion: Feed vs. Food
Animals Are Inefficient Converters of Food
That farmed animals consume more than food than they produce is undisputed.
The question is not "IF" animals are inefficient food converters, but "HOW" inefficient are they?
How much food (calories, protein, and nutrients) is lost by cycling crops through animals for meat versus eating a institute-based diet directly? And what are the consequences to food security, personal health, and the planet?
What Are Feed Conversion Ratios?
Feed Conversion Ratios (FCRs) measure the amount of feed/crops needed to produce a unit of meat.
FCRs and related bug are generally discussed in terms of "efficiency."
For case, chickens are more efficient converters crops that cows. They have a lower FCR, significant that it takes less feed to create a pound of chicken than a pound of beef.
Even so, given the inherent loss of crops and natural resources involved in producing meat and other animal sourced foods (ASF), "inefficiency" is a far more accurate term.
For example, cows are far more inefficient than chickens in terms of feed ratios. Unfortunately, (spoiler warning) chickens are yet very inefficient in that they consume more than twice as many calories and poly peptide than they produce.
This is an example of the importance of language. Producing meat is inherently inefficient, only since the livestock industry creates much of the language (and math), they are able skew public perception.
Feed:Meat Ratios –> Calculating FCRs
For practical reasons, feed ratios are by and large assigned based on animal species (encounter beneath).
Wide estimates are sometimes fifty-fifty used to represent the entire category of meat (ex: meat requires 10x more crops than feeding people directly).
We also apply these shortcuts for illustrative purposes, while acknowledging that that in that location is wide variation in the actual FCRs of detail animals based on historic period, breed, internal and external surround, type of feed, and a multitude of other factors.
Equally interdisciplinary scientist Valcav Smil explains, "definite rate is valid merely for a particular beast, herd, or flock." (p.146)
The section beneath explains some of the factors that produce vastly different published numbers and makes recommendations based on the about useful measures.
The calculations represent FCRs for crop-fed farmed animals. In other words, how much more nutrient each animal consumes than they produce. Typical feed crops are grains and legumes: corn, soy, and wheat.
These numbers are important every bit crop-fed, manufacturing plant/conventionally-farmed animals are the norm in industrialized countries and the global growth-rate of meat is alarmingly loftier. Intensive (factory) farming represents the overwhelming majority (>98%) of meat produced in the United States.
SIDE Annotation: Mill farm opponents sometimes promote grass-fed cattle as an eco-friendly alternative. Unfortunately, grass-fed ruminants (cows, goats, sheep, etc) are actually more subversive in terms of climate modify. Grass-fed cattle emit 3x more than methane than ingather-fed cattle and are the cause of massive deforestation to create grazing pastures.
Mainstream Feed Conversion Ratios
-
- Chickens – 2x-5x
- Pigs – 4x-9x
- Cows – 6x-25x
*These are mainstream/middle-range estimates.
Live weight FCRs – will have lower ratios considering they represent the number of pounds in crop that animals consume to gain i pound while they are alive.
Edible weight FCRs – volition have higher ratios because they more accurately represent the amount ready-to-swallow of meat produced after slaughter and processing.
Even with edible weight, there will be variations such equally carcass/hanging weight and final/take-home (which is roughly half of live weight for pigs and one-tertiary for cows — thus doubling and tripling the inefficiency ratios — more than when boneless). See detailed chart.
Most of the caloric free energy animals consume is used to fuel their metabolism and to form bones, cartilage, feathers, fluids, and other non-edible parts. Thus, the inefficiencies more than double when liquid weight is removed – the weight of the water, blood, and other bodily fluids. Farther weight loss occurs with the removal of bones and other non-consumable body parts.
Often times, the nutrient industry will publish the low cease FCRs, which minimizes the perceived waste. Those without a vested interest in brute agriculture and/or industry critics are more likely to publish the higher (more than authentic) post-processing carcass or boneless numbers.
Even if method is held constant, there will be a variation in FCRs. Other factors that affect FCRs include: type/quality/moisture of feed, animal historic period, breed, activity level, number of offspring, and a host of other variables.
There is a great deal of focus on improving these factors in reduce inefficiencies, but the inherent waste of cycling crops through animals remains. Adjusting these factors but shaves downwards some of the numbers without addressing the core effect that feeding animals to produce food is a massive internet loss of available global calories and protein.
Consider how telling it is that a ii:1 loss of nutrient crops is considered very efficient and cause to gloat. When nosotros talk food waste, would we consider losing half of all crops "good?"
FCR Mainstream Examples
Live Weight
- six:1 – beefiness cows – Beefiness Magazine (manufacture)
- half dozen:1 – beef cows, 3.iv:1 – pigs, 2:1 – poultry – Noble Foundation (manufacture)
- seven:one – beef cows, four:ane – pigs, two-1 – chickens – Brown (advocate)
- viii-12:1 – beefiness cows, 5-vi.five:ane – pigs, 2-2.v:1 – chickens – Smil (p.157) via Cassidy (p.6)
Edible Weight (more than accurate)
- sixteen:one – beefiness cows – Lappe (Diet for a Small Planet, 1991, p.69) – (frequently-cited abet)
- 25:1 – beef cows, 9.4:1 – pigs, 4.v:1 – chickens – Smil (EM/2008 via UKY) (researcher)
More Comprehensive FCRs
Percent/Units of Edible Output per 100 Units of Feed
- Poultry – Calories – 11% – Protein 20%
- Pigs – Calories – 10% – Protein 15%
- Cows/Beef – Calories – 1% – Protein – 4%
Source: World Resource Institute (w/UN & WB): Creating a Sustainable Food Future, p.37
New, more than comprehensive methods show that even the high-finish of normally cited FCRs are highly conservative.
Perchance the almost accurate way to judge the inefficiencies of brute sourced food product is to summate the sector-wide phytomass (plant biomass) energy that goes into animal production versus how much energy comes out in the form of beast sourced foods.
In other words, what portion of found energy dedicated to raising animals becomes edible calories in the class of meat, dairy, and eggs. This method looks across costs associated with a single animal and instead at the the energy flows in the broader food system.
By computing the fates and flows of phytomass energy on a macro calibration, it is possible to track how and where food energy is being wasted in the production of various food products.
Energy Flows in the Broader Food Organization
The inefficiencies expressed as "units of edible output per 100 units of feed input," are lower than the previous feed conversion calculations because they are based on free energy flows from constitute phytomass to edible animal parts. For case, they gene in feed that gets wasted before it reaches livestock animals, the institute mass that goes to non-feed purposes such every bit bedding, the energy grass and other provender that goes into feeding livestock, and the free energy needed to back up animal product across only producing animals.
Many animals involved in livestock production do not directly produce food, such as animals that are inevitably culled, that die before reaching maturity, and that are used in breeding. (Stefan Wirsenius, Human Use of Land and Organic Materials, 2000)
Wirsenius'south work takes a macro look at the nutrient organization, calculating how much phytomass is appropriated for food production in the form of pasture and cropland, related to how much food is produced. This method is helpful because it gets at the total nutrient energy that into fauna agriculture as a system.
According to previous estimates, over 2-thirds of phytomass free energy appropriation is defended to farmed creature production, despite that the sector only produces nigh 13% of total nutrient calories.
In the same way that one can get an accurate estimate of how much a higher education will toll by including the cost of housing, supplies, and other living expenses with the toll of tuition, and so too tin can one become a more accurate estimate of the inefficiency with which farmed animals catechumen plants to animal sourced foods by considering the feed needs (including pasture and grain) of the animate being agronomics sub-sectors.
Another strength in Wirsenius's method is that, different the previous feed conversion methods that only calculate conversions in terms of feed such as soy or corn, it also factors grass and forage into its calculations.
Grain weight is easier to quantify since producers tend to purchase and feed it to animals in given weights, whereas the amount of grass and forage animals consume on pasture tin can only be roughly estimated.
In this gross energy calculation that looks at all phytomass appropriation involved in nutrient production, pasture land is the largest source of phytomass energy. This, combined with the inherent feed conversion inefficiencies of cattle, are one of the reasons why beef production is one of the least efficient forms of nutrient product.
While phytomass that is not in non edible to humans is often discounted in determining the crop costs and opportunity costs of using animals for food, much of the land cleared for pasture could also be used for crop production, then it should exist thought of every bit forgone plant-based food production. There are too significant environmental impacts related to immigration wilderness areas for pasture land/
But even if we were to adapt these calculations to remove the phytomass energy derived from not-edible material, such as grass on open pasture or the straw that is used every bit bedding in some brute operations, there would still be a dramatic difference in the quantity of nutrient that can be yielded every bit edible calories for human consumption from livestock food and from plant-based protein alternatives.
Decision: Feed vs. Food
Regardless of the exact numbers, producing crops (soy, corn, wheat, etc.) for creature feed is many times more resource-intensive than using crops for direct man consumption. While at that place are perilous trade-offs related to fuel vs. food, a more than serious concern for a diversity of reasons is feed vs. food.
With 75% of all agricultural country used for creature production—and more than a 3rd of global calories and half of global protein inefficiently used as animal feed —the impact of increasing global meat consumption is awe-inspiring. (ERL p.2-3)
For more on the opportunity costs of animal agronomics, please see: Cassidy's "Redefining Agricultural Yields: From Tonnes to People Nourished Per Hectare."
Boosted Notes
From the Vegetarian Resources Group
"[F]eed is Non synonymous with "concentrates" such every bit grains and legumes. Some USDA tables may use "equally-fed" feed values which ways the moisture content of the feed (which may vary between vii and 70% of the feed weight itself) is included. Similar tables constitute in other sources may exist based on 'dry matter weight' which excludes all weight of the feedstuff due to water."
"A large portion of the diets of ruminant livestock, including cattle, sheep and goats, consists of feedstuffs that are non edible by humans such every bit pasture, hay and ingather residues (i.e., corn stalks). In some regions of the earth, ruminants subsist entirely on these. However, most ruminant livestock produced nether intensive conditions, (i.eastward., feedlots), practice spend a significant part of their life eating grains and soybean byproducts, such as soybean repast and soybean oil, that are human-edible."
"The state of affairs is different with monogastric livestock, (i.due east., animals with one stomach), such as hogs and poultry. Nether intensive rearing weather that are mutual in the The states, their diet consists almost exclusively of human-edible grains and legumes. So for these species, their feed is virtually all grain and legume."
Recommended Sources
Cassidy, Emily et al, "Redefining Agricultural Yields: From Tonnes to People Nourished Per Hectare." Environmental Research Messages, 5. 8(3). IOPScience, September 2013, p. 2-iii. http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/iii/034015
Smil, Vaclav, Feeding the World: A Challenge for the 21st Century, MIT Press, 2000, p. 145-157.
Yacoubou, Jeanne, "Factors Involved in Computing Grain:Meat Conversion Ratios." Vegetarian Resource Group, final accessed October 2015. www.vrg.org/environment/grain_meat_conversion_ratios.php
Last updated October 26, 2015
Source: https://awellfedworld.org/feed-ratios/
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