5.7 Meat Production Methods

cafos

concentrated animal feeding operations

• beef cattle, dairy cows, hogs, poultry

• confined or allowed little room for movement for all or part of life cycle

• antibiotics and nutrient supplements to minimize the rampant diseases and malnutrition

cafo benefits

• minimize land costs

• improve feeding efficiency

• increase fraction of food energy that goes into production of animal body mass

cafo drawbacks

• infections, antibiotic resistance in animals

• diseases like mad cow

• waster disposal (manure)

  • nutrient runoff into waterways and groundwater

• ethical concerns

• nutritional content of food

free range grazing

dry open grasslands used for the grazing of cattle (rangelands)

* the most common use of land in the US

grazing benefits

1. ungulates (hooded animals) can be raised on land that is too dry to farm

2. uses less fossil fuel energy than feed lots

grazing drawbacks

1. vulnerability to fires because of aridity

2. stream bank erosion

3. pollution of surface waters

4. over grazing

   1. leaves land exposed to wind erosion

   2. soils can no longer absorb and retain water

   3. biodiversity decreases

taylor grazing act

• converted federal rangelands from a commons into a permit-based grazing systems

• critics: low costs of permits continue to encourage overgrazing

• govt spends 7x more money on management than it receives in fees (so grazing is effectively subsidized)