Cattle Ranching

On the western Great Plains, beef cattle are raised and later shipped to feedlots in the West and Midwest for fattening on high-protein feed, such as corn. What do beef cattle eat on the western Great Plains?

Answer: natural grasses (short grass prairie) and water pumped to the surface by windmills.
In the Spring, the new calves are branded.

Ranchers graze their livestock on both public and private lands. The difference is that private landowners make money from the practice; the government instead subsidizes private ranchers, who vote Republican! The 1997 Economic Report to the President quoted estimates that grazing fees for federal land averaged $1.20 per cow (or per five sheep) per month between 1965 and 1992, compared with $11.20 for private grazing in 11 western states. In 1996, according to Green Scissors, a coalition of environmentalists and free-market economists, grazing fees recovered only $25 million of the $77 million it cost to manage the program. Subsidized grazing occurs on 270 million acres of American land, an area the size of California and Texas combined. When the price of grazing is too low, the result is over-use; or, more broadly, inappropriate use. There can be grave effects on habitat and wildlife. A study of the Bureau of Land Management range program estimates that 60 percent of its rangelands have lost half their native plants and grasses.

Meat production around the world has enormous consequences on natural resources. With three times more animals than people in the world, land, water, and pollution are abused. Rainforests in Brazil, for example, are felled for grazing hamburger cattle; methane from prolific farting and belching animals ranks second in the cases of global warming; animal feces are a major cause of acid rain and river pollution; and livestock grazing is a major cause of desertification in West Africa.

On land large enough to feed two people raising cattle and then eating them; enough soybeans can be grown to feed 60 people. And the water needed for one day's food for a meat-eater is 15,000 liters, while for a vegetarian (who eats renewable animal produces, such as milk and eggs) it is 5,000 liters; and for a vegan (who eats only plants), 1,150 liters. Source: The New Internationalist, November 1999, p. 2.

Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 30 April 1996; last revised on 07 December 2010.