Pondering a Return of the Buffalo
By Monica @ 7:30 PM   
I've been thinking about buffalo lately (I use the term "buffalo" loosely), partly because we've had some really amazing bison roasts in the past couple of weeks. We got them at Costco for about $5 per pound, a very reasonable price in my estimation. I prepare them in my slow cooker and they are amazingly tender and delicious. I would really love to eat some more bison -- particularly, different cuts besides roasts.
If you love beef and you haven't tried bison, you're missing out. I believe I read somewhere that the fatty acid profile is better than beef as well. Considering that by 1900 there were only a few hundred bison left in the world, I'm very grateful that they've been brought back from the brink of extinction and that the herds have been preserved in great enough numbers to now eat. And of course, they're impressive animals to just observe as well.
I've been pondering a return in the United States to a more grass-fed system of meat production, with Americans eating more meats instead of grains and sugars. While I'm sure a good portion of agricultural land will always be devoted to grains in America, I would personally welcome seeing more cattle and/or bison grazing on an open plain where soy and corn previously grew. That's just my personal preference -- but I do believe it would be much healthier for most Americans to eat more meat in place of soy and corn products. (It's not just a belief, the science is there.) And I certainly believe these more natural grazing systems replacing traditional monocultures in the midwest would be better for our environment and the health of the people living in the immediate area.
Whether or not there would ever be a huge consumer demand for bison is questionable. However, one has to consider why the bison went to the brink of extinction in the first place. It's not that the meat wasn't any good or there wasn't economic value to be had there. It was just that Americans preferred their cattle, for obvious reasons, and there was a political incentive to slaughter all the bison to get rid of the Native Americans' food source. The same incentives to rid the plains of bison in the 1800s simply don't exist today. I've no doubt that ranching bison isn't the same as or as easy as ranching cattle -- but if my local Costco is any indication, their product line for bison seems to be expanding.
I believe a more grass-fed system could be consumer-driven if corn subsidies were eliminated. Of course, it's another question as to whether beef consumption, grass-fed or not, will increase based on the decline in red meat consumption over the past 30-40 years. But the other question is : is this even possible, environmentally speaking? Can we actually produce as many cattle or bison in America on a grass-fed model? I believe it is possible but it would appear to require more land:
Cattle industry statistics [U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2008] show that, in 2007, the United States used 2 billion bushels of corn to produce 22.16 billion lb finished grain-fed beef (17.3 million head steers and 10.2 million head heifers at average dressed weights of 830.2 and 764.8 lb, respectively). At 150 bushels/acre corn, this means we used 13.3 million acres to produce the feed grains. Converting all beef production to grass-based finishing would require at least an additional 26.6 million acres of pasture/grass to produce 2007 U.S. beef output.
I agree that grass-fed beef takes more land than grain-fed beef, but I think there's something fishy about these numbers. I really believe we'd only need twice as much land to finish, at most. In other words, an additional 13.3 million acres, not an additional 26.6 million. Stay with me... If we have 27.5 million head of cattle being slaughtered for grain-fed beef yearly, finished on grains from 13.3 million acres, and we estimate that 1 acre of grass per head is needed for pastured, grass-fed techniques instead of the approximately 0.5 acres per head needed for grain finishing, we only come up with a total of 27.5 million acres total needed for 27.5 million head.
In any case, it would take twice as much land to finish these cattle grass-fed, but since most cattle are not raised their entire life in a feedlot (only the last year or so), I don't actually believe the total amount of land to raise all cattle on grass for their entire lives would actually raise significantly. In fact, since we have around 100 million head of cattle in the United States, assuming only 27 million or so are being finished on grain at any given time, that means about 73 million head are on pasture -- and that already requires roughly 73 million acres. So, we'd be looking at a total of 100 million acres for grass raising and finishing as opposed to approximately 86 million acres for grass raising and grain finishing. That's not really a very significant difference in land volume. The reason it's such a profitable system is because of corn subsidies and because corn fattens cows more quickly. (If these numbers look funny or you have further comments, please let me know, but I think I have it about right.)
This is especially interesting in consideration of where our corn is going. About 35% of it is used for ethanol (some of the byproduct is then used for cattle feed). About 55% is used for cattle feed. And only 5% of it is used for producing high fructose corn syrup.
Wow.
So, in other words, if we dumped corn subsidies altogether, and corn-based ethanol were to go by the wayside because it is economically unsustainable on its own, it would free up a whole lot of land for pasture right there. Wishful thinking, I know! And incidentally, the problems of increased cost of corn faced by those raising animals has recently been discussed here. I'm not prepared to say what corn should cost, but I certainly think it would be more expensive without subsidies in any case.
Now consider how many bison roamed in North America, in their original range from the western plains to as far east as Ohio and Georgia, before they were eliminated by government policies. Estimates are between 50-100 million ... and bison weigh somewhat more than cows.
I'm not sure we'll ever see significant numbers of bison on former corn- and soy-fields in the United States in our lifetime, or even cattle for that matter. But it's food for thought.Labels: Bison, Buffalo, Grass-fed, Pastured
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