Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
beef. The difference comes in the last four to six months of
the cow's life, where most cattle enter a feedlot and are given
a diet consisting mostly of grain (usually corn and soybean
meal). Grass-fed beef do not enter a feedlot, but remain on
pasture whenever grass is growing. It would be more trans-
parent to call one type of beef “corn-finished” and the other
“grass-finished” beef, but that is not the terminology that has
evolved.
Consumers naturally want to know whether grass-fed
or corn-fed beef has a smaller footprint, but there is no easy
answer. The documentary
Carbon Nation
argues that one of
the most effective means for reducing greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere is to encourage permanent pastures for graz-
ing. The film's director and producer, Peter Byck, passionately
argues this can be accomplished by allowing cattle to remain
on grass throughout their lives.
Plants, with the help of fungi that live on their roots, natu-
rally capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the
soil, but modern cropping methods tend to disrupt this soil
and kill these fungi, releasing the carbon back into the air.
Converting fields that formerly grew corn for the feedlot to
pastures,
Carbon Nation
argues, can reduce our carbon emis-
sions by 39 percent. While the film cautions that “now this is
new science, to be sure,” it follows by saying, “but the early
numbers are encouraging.”
Viewers of
Carbon Nation
or any interview with Peter Byck
might be quickly convinced that by replacing their regular beef
with grass-fed beef, they are doing their part for the planet
without giving up the foods they love. If those same viewers
then turned the channel from
Carbon Nation
to the talk-show
Stossel
, they might then see the animal scientist Jude Capper
argue otherwise.
[Grass-fed cattle] have a far lower efficiency . . . . The ani-
mals take twenty-three months to grow versus fifteen
[for corn-fed cattle]. That's an extra eight months of feed,
