Grass fed is way cheaper, however the more cows you have the less labor per steak. This is normal for the conventional industry but organic/grass fed is usually much more small scale. I feel certain that at a large scale grass fed beef is the least labor intensive and cheapest calorie in the human diet. What makes cows efficient is not their ability to produce meat. They have two incredible advantages, one is that they can convert extremely low quality desert and tropical forages few other animals could live off of into a calf, all while not dieing and two a growing or milking cow can convert lush high nutrition forages into more meat per day per animal than any animal and milk more milk than any animal.
Americans favor the cow because our culture is continuously moving ease and convenience and there is just less labor in dealing with cattle than there is in pigs, sheep and chickens or even milking goats.
North America is in an odd position when it comes to beef. Probably the biggest part of why it is so hard for us to compete on the world market is that the majority of our continent is not the ideal place for raising herds of beef cattle. Breeding cattle to produce calves is not very efficient land use. Especially like in North America we have long harsh winters that often necessitate winter feeding which is the most cost intensive part of beef production. They cannot produce like a pig or a chicken or even a sheep. However they can produce on land that the other three cannot. So where land is cheap because of low fertility and low precipitation or where forage is extremely plentiful and course due to high rainfall and heat cattle will dominate.
So China, Argentina and Brazil are more natural beef havens.
The beef industry in America has actually long been propped up by the cheapness of grains. Now that grain production has become so expensive the people who grow the cheapest grass will have the best beef economy. The best hope for North American beef is the increased use of winter pastures and the shunning of hay making equipment.
I also predicted the terrible price increase of meat and animals. Beef is higher then ever, I heard about cow calf pairs selling for 3200 at auction. Worthless cull cows sell for around 1000.
I was blessed this year with 3 heifers and a bull so far, which brings me up to 10 females, all my herd is worth over 15'000. We survived the overall coldest winter in the history of Michigan!
Topic: Price check on Meat (Read 14928 times)