What Time of Year Is Pastured Beef Slaughtered and Sold

Cows graze on a grass field at a farm in Schaghticoke, N.Y. The grass-fed motion is based on the thought of regenerative agriculture. John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption

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John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images

Cows graze on a grass field at a farm in Schaghticoke, Northward.Y. The grass-fed movement is based on the thought of regenerative agriculture.

John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images

For the environmentally minded carnivore, meat poses a culinary conundrum. Producing information technology requires a neat deal of land and water resources, and ruminants such as cows and sheep are responsible for half of all greenhouse gas emissions associated with agronomics, according to the Earth Resources Institute.

That's why many researchers are now calling for the globe to cut back on its meat consumption. Simply some advocates say there is a way to eat meat that'due south meliorate for the planet and better for the animals: grass-fed beef.

Only is grass-fed beef really greener than feedlot-finished beef? Let's parse the science.

What's the difference between grass-fed and feedlot beef?

Feedlot calves begin their lives on pasture with the cow that produced them. They're weaned later on six to nine months, then grazed a bit more on pasture. They're then "finished" for about 120 days on high-energy corn and other grains in a feedlot, gaining weight fast and creating that fatty-marbled beef that consumers similar. At about 14 to 18 months of age, they are sent to slaughter. (One downside of the feedlot system, as we've reported, is that a diet of corn can pb to liver abscesses in cattle, which is why animals who eat it receive antibiotics every bit part of their feed.)

In a grass-fed and finished scenario, cattle spend their entire lives on grass. Since their feed is much lower in energy, they are sent to slaughter later — between 18 to 24 months of age, after a finishing period, withal on grass, of 190 days. Their weight at slaughter averages nigh one,200 pounds compared with well-nigh one,350 pounds for feedlot animals.

What's the ecology argument for grass-fed beefiness?

The grass-fed movement is based on a large idea, ane known every bit regenerative agriculture or holistic management. It holds that grazing ruminant populations are central to a healthy ecosystem.

Think of the hordes of bison that one time roamed the prairies. Their manure returned nutrients to the soil. And considering these animals grazed on grass, the land didn't have to be plowed to plant corn for feed, and so deep-rooted grasses that prevent erosion flourished. Had those iconic herds withal been effectually in the 1930s, the argument goes, they would have helped prevent the ending of the Dust Bowl.

Quaternary-generation Oregon rancher Cory Carman runs a 5,000-acre grass-fed beef cattle operation, where grazing is key to restoring ecosystem residuum. "Agronomical livestock are this incredible tool in promoting soil wellness," she says. "The longer you can manage cattle on pasture range, the more they can contribute to ecosystem regeneration."

Returning cattle and other ruminants to the country for their entire lives tin can result in multiple benefits, co-ordinate to organizations like the Savory Institute, including restoring soil microbial diversity, and making the state more resilient to flooding and drought. Information technology can boost the nutrient content and flavor of livestock and plants. And because grasses trap atmospheric carbon dioxide, the grass-fed organization tin too assist fight climate change. But it does require more than land to produce the same corporeality of meat.

Equally Shauna Sadowski, head of sustainability for the natural and organic operating unit of measurement at General Mills, puts it, "Our current model is an extractive one that has left our surround in a state of degradation — eroded soil, polluted water. We have to alter the entire paradigm to utilise natural ecological processes to gather nutrients and build the soil."

Which blazon of beef has the smaller environmental footprint?

It's complicated.

To measure out the environmental impact of a farming system, scientists rely on studies known as life-cycle assessments (LCAs), which take into account resources and energy utilisation at all stages.

A number of past studies have found lower greenhouse gas emissions associated with the feedlot system. One reason is that grass-fed cows gain weight more slowly, and so they produce more marsh gas (more often than not in the form of belches) over their longer lifespans.

Paige Stanley, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, says many of these studies have prioritized efficiency — loftier-energy feed, smaller state footprint — every bit a manner of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The larger the beast and the shorter its life, the lower its footprint. But she adds, "We're learning that there are other dimensions: soil health, carbon and mural health. Separating them is doing us a disservice." She and other researchers are trying to figure out how to contain those factors into an LCA analysis.

Stanley co-authored a recent LCA study, led past Jason Rowntree of Michigan State University, that found carbon-trapping benefits of the grass-fed approach. Another contempo LCA written report, of Georgia's holistically managed White Oak Pastures, found that the three,200-acre subcontract stored enough carbon in its grasses to get-go not only all of the methane emissions from its grass-fed cattle, but too much of the farm'southward full emissions. (The latter report was funded by General Mills.)

Linus Blomqvist, manager for conservation, food and agriculture for the Oakland, Calif.-based Breakthrough Institute, nonetheless, defends feedlot finishing, pointing out that the difference between the two systems is only the last third of the grass-fed cattle'due south life. Does the actress amount of pasture time sequester so much carbon that it offsets the advantage of the feedlot? "We don't actually have very good evidence for that," he says.

Alison Van Eenennaam, a specialist in animal genomics and biotechnology at the Academy of California, Davis, says grass-fed makes more sense in a land like Australia, which has a temperate climate, big tracts of grassland and no corn belt. But in the U.S., which does accept a corn belt that suffers from cold winters, she believes grain finishing is the more efficient manner to produce beefiness.

Which brings us to our next point.

Do you know where your grass-fed beef came from?

Nigh 75% to eighty% of grass-fed beefiness sold in the U.South. is grown abroad, from Australia, New Zealand and parts of South America, co-ordinate to a 2017 report from the Stone Barns Center for Nutrient and Agriculture. Those countries have the advantage of "vast expanses of grassland, low-input beefiness that is non finished to a high level and is very cheap," says Rowntree — even with the cost of shipping it halfway around the world. Nearly of what comes from Commonwealth of australia is footing beef, not steaks, because the cease result of their finishing process tends to exist tough.

Many U.S. customers who desire to back up local nutrient are likely unaware of the strange origin of near grass-fed beef. Past police, if meat is "candy," or passes through a USDA-inspected plant (a requirement for all imported beef), it tin can be labeled every bit a product of the U.S.

"Just does it benefit the American farmer?" Rowntree asks, comparison this market place to the sheep industry, "which lost out to imports from Australia and New Zealand."

The popularity of grass-fed beef is pulling U.Southward.-based multinational companies into the market as well, which volition drive prices downwardly farther. Meat processor JBS United states now has a grass-fed line, Tyson Foods is planning a Texas grass-fed program and earlier this year, Perdue announced information technology was getting into the marketplace.

Which system is better for animal welfare?

To many grass-fed advocates, this is ane of the main reasons for switching to grass-fed beef. After all, cows evolved to alive this way.

"I've been on feedlots farms that take outstanding animate being welfare, and I've been on small farms that would make you lot cringe," Rowntree says. But he adds, "Managing cattle on pasture in a grass-finishing system to me epitomizes animate being welfare."

Nancy Matsumoto is a journalist based in Toronto and New York Urban center who writes about sustainability, food, sake and Japanese American culture. You can read more of her piece of work here.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is-grass-fed-beef-really-better-for-the-planet-heres-the-science

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