Grass fed cattle can use land that is generally not fit for vegetation farming... because of excess rocks, etc. Ruminants that are being naturally (grass) fed are also regenerative in terms of soil health.

They don't tend to "bulk up" as much as conventional (grain fed and/or finished) options though, so are more expensive to produce... the gas emissions are another issue that is largely different for grass fed, where the off gases are roughly the same as the grass's natural breakdown would release anyway.

In terms of water use, naturally grass fed cattle are mostly using water that fell on the land as rain in terms of how much water they use. It's not much from municipal sources, unlike vegetation farming.

Of course there are other ruminant options that are more efficient than cattle, such as goats and sheep, with similar benefits to the soil.

It just bugs me that cattle gets such a bad repuation... especially in that it's one of the few things I can eat without issue.

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capitainenemo 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So, I was saying ecosystems. Filling the world with cows is not the same as natural ecosystems.

Also, kurzgesagt did a pretty good episode on meat production (edit - they did several, but one was on the production demands in terms of energy and environment), and if I'm to trust their figures, the "cattle grazing exclusively on the pampas" is far from the majority of world cattle. If it was, that probably would be an improvement, esp if it was done in a way that allowed other species to exist too (maybe bring some buffalo back?). The percentage would be dramatically improved if finishing lots were eliminated though (still a minority though). So maybe that's a simple option. Plus, that's the cruelest part of the cow's existence.

https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture (crazy amount of habitable surface of planet is livestock) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01398-4 (study on what percent of production is actually "low-intensity grazing on marginal land")

Again, not saying eliminate, just... reduce...

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tracker1 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think the answer is reduce though... I think it's increase... humans wiped out so many of the ruminant animals (buffalo mainly) that kept the grasslands healthy... we've largely over-farmed in the interim since. We need more ruminants, not less.

This means raising much more than we currently do, and probably a reduction in slaughter numbers for the next 50+ years to increase the domestic supply. Can't speak for other nations... but it's literally expanding grasslands as opposed to desert.

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capitainenemo 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes. I saw that TED talk about desertification being reversed by ruminants, and while it got a lot of critics, it had some pretty good points. But, those ruminants would be better off not being beef cattle in terms of biodiversity. Also, if they were beef cattle due to the lack of anything better, hopefully it would be short term, and if you're making a case for use of marginal land, they really shouldn't be finished in a feed lot, since that is using a lot of cropland to support that.

... and only some places would (possibly) benefit from that.

	▲	tracker1 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think cattle are fine... though I'm also okay with more Bison, goats, sheep, deer, elk, etc. I'm also more than okay with less use of feed lots and direct butchery of grass fed ruminants. As for marginal land... personally, I can only handle mostly eating meat and eggs, doing much better with ruminants. I'd be just fine with the majority of uninhabited lands being used by mostly wild ruminants over any kind of farming, especially farming that is using chemical fertilizers and stripping the land.

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mcv 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Grass fed cattle can use land that is generally not fit for vegetation farming

Can, but that doesn't mean it always is. There's lots of cattle that never even comes outside, and is fed food that humans could also eat.

I recall reading that during the famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s, Ethiopian farmers were exporting beans to feed cattle in Europe because that was more profitable than feeding people in Ethiopia.

Beef is simply extremely inefficient. And so, unfortunately, is cheese (I can do without beef, but not without cheese). If cattle is grazing on land that's simply not usable for anything else, that's a completely different matter, but that's not how most cattle are fed.