a lot of times pasture allows you to use marginal land that wouldn't be suitable for other cultures. Outside the developed world this happens a lot. In plenty of places there's not an option between corn and goats, but between inedible brush and goats. This doesn't apply too much to countries like the US, where cattle is feed with grains, that indeed could be consumed directly by humans without the energy losses created by the metabolic processes of raising said animals. But for free-range cattle in the less developed world, meat means having a biological factory to transform inedible cellulose into calories and proteins. And even for agricultural land of higher quality, suitable for crops, it is a good sustainable practice to alternate cultures with an occasional year of growing pasture, and letting cattle graze upon it and fertilize it with manure. So, the matter is more nuanced here. A big part of the problem are the subsides and non-tariff barriers that incentive farmers to raise cattle with feed on developed countries.