High price of corn forcing farmers to feed candy to livestock

Someone seems to do a story on this kind of thing every year. Last time I heard about it, it was local farmers feeding their cows past-due fruit loops and other sugary cereal. So it's hardly an uncommon sort of thing in general. If it's digestible and not poisonous, a cow has probably been made to eat it.

Cows will eat most anything. It doesn't mean they should.

You would rather that food unsuitable for human consumption were thrown out to rot rather than feeding livestock?

that wouldn't make them fat enough.

Animals do not grow as fast on grass. Also, they do not taste the way Americans like their animals to taste. Land availability also plays a factor as it takes more acre per animal using grass vs corn/sugar.

I'm no farmer either, but I assume grass doesn't have the effect they're looking for (weight gain), and they'd probably need much more of it.

Also, check Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan for an in depth look at America, corn and other food.

What about "Because drought affects all living plants not only corn"?

You've got ranchers in places like Wyoming where the forage is barely sufficient to keep livestock alive. Cattle raised under these conditions have to be fattened up before they can be sent to a slaughterhouse. Typically these cows will be shipped to another ranch that specializes in this before then being shipped to market. It sounds like the guy quoted in the article is running one of these secondary "fattening" ranches.

Since grain (or in this case candy) has a much higher energy content than grass, cattle can be raised to market weight much faster than if they were fed a grass diet.

Edit: I accidentally a word.

Main reason is 'speed to fatness' the second reason is that he doesn't have corn because of a drought, which also affects not having grass (or more typically hay/alfalfa)

Yes, cows are supposed to eat grass. That is a part of their natural diet. There are farms in America that focus on sustainable agriculture and ethical animal husbandry. This article is talking about a factory farm, which focuses on profit.

I've always wondered if you could combine a sod farm and cattle ranch? You've got to cut the grass anyway.

I'm sure there would be problems such as trampling the grass, over-grazing, but maybe they're solvable??

Yes that is what they are supposed to be eating. Their digestive systems have evolved over millions of years to eat grass, and if they eat grass they will be healthier animals, and their meat will taste like real beef and not like tasteless cardboard. I pretty much stick exclusively to grass-fed beef. There are all these complex chemical compounds in grass that flavor the meat and give it rich and distinctive notes -- as the other commenter said, read Omnivore's Dilemma. The cattle are supposed to be able to walk around, too.

The reason it's not done is cost. Grass fed beef is easily twice as expensive as corn-fed beef. The cheapest way to raise cattle is to raise them in a CAFO, and feed them the cheapest possible feed, which has been corn for quite a long time. The farmer who is feeding his cattle candy is really just feeding them yesterday's corn, as most American candy is made from high fructose corn syrup. Walk into a supermarket sometime and count the number of products that use HFCS -- it's staggering. The price of corn going up is actually really big news -- if it's a sustained trend it's going to have a far-reaching impact on American agriculture.

America ought to think about that question deeply. Corn fed ground beef in the supermarket is $3-4 per pound while grass raised ground beef is $7-$9 per pound. We (Americans) are making ourselves very sick with degenerative diseases (cancer, heart, alzeimer's, dementia, arthritis) at rates orders of magnitude larger than our ancestors. I believe the race to make cheap food (corn feed beef in this example) is causing health suffering on the backend (degenerative disease)

Cattle is buy/sell in auction-like markets with price set per kilo.

Beef cows are sold 'by the pound' so farmers look at the cost of adding pounds to the price per pound and solve for the greatest $.

As for the feed vs the taste, I literally put chicken shit on the ground my tomatoes are growing in and it makes them both larger and tastier. Biological transformation is a magical thing in many ways.

I like curves in all the right places!

As others already answered, lean meat weights less, therefore it's less money per cattle. The majority of the fat on cattle is in-between the muscle fibers.

> Don't the farmers want their cattle to have high protein/muscle content versus high fat content?

Nope. Fat tastes better. Fattier beef is higher-quality and sells for more per pound (aside from having more pounds overall).

> Don't the farmers want their cattle to have high protein/muscle content versus high fat content?

Not really. Marbling is a coveted feature in beef because folks tend to think fattier food tastes better. Marbling is largely just a euphemism for fatty. For example, beef has to surpass a minimum fat threshold to qualify as USDA Prime or Kobe beef. And getting that stamp lets the farmer get a higher price - so farmers who are selling to the general market do want a higher fat content.