Natural vs Unnatural, Organic vs Inorganic

Let's take a look at these labels. Given the choice, wouldn't you choose organic and natural over inorganic and unnatural? We can guess that the answer is "yes," but if we start to look at the reasons behind practices deemed inorganic and unnatural, we may begin to see why they are used.

Take, for instance, hormones. There is no strong evidence that hormone implants cause or do not cause harm to humans or the implanted animal. It is, however, most definitely unnatural, so that tips the scale in favor of the better-safe-than-sorry route. However, health arguments aside, excluding hormones increases the time and resources (food, labor) required for an animal to reach market weight.

If we throw grass-fed beef into the mix, the acres required to raise beef increases. Consider this scenario provided by one of our NPOV members in response to a rancher in California raising grass-fed beef:

"500 head on 3500 acres? That's 1 head for every 7 acres, or if you're
in tune with most of the world it would take 2.8 hectares to raise 1
head - approximately 600# of beef. If you assume the US has 173,450,000
hectares of arable land (2003) and the population is 301,197,947 (early
2007) then each of us will get about 120# / year, the equivalent of a
little more that a quarter pounder/day. That's assuming we raise only
cattle on nothing but arable land (one of the beauties of livestock is
that they can use so-called "waste" land), no carrots or peas or apples
or oranges or pecans or peanuts or cotton or soybeans (for meat
substitute?), no land for cities or golf courses or parks or fence rows
or etc. ad nauseum. But we could still grow rice and cranberries, of
course.

If you look at the entire world the situation isn't as rosy -
1,402,317,000 hectares of arable land (2003 and from what I've read
we're losing approximately 100,000 sq km/yr) with a population of
6,602,224,175 (2007) makes that 0.075 hectares/person, about 45# of that
same beef/person/year, slightly less that 1/2 a quarter pounder/day

In the US, we're alloted 0.576 hectares (1.4 acres, 61,973 sq ft) of
arable land using the above figures. Could any of us live on this
amount? In the world we'd be alloted 0.212 hectares (0.52 acres or
22,809 sq ft) - could we then?"

Here is an excerpt from a study from the Hudson Institute Center for Global Food Issues:

"Eco-benefits wise, we can produce basically three times as much beef per given unit of land with grain finishing with the aid of growth promotants,” says Alex Avery of the Hudson Institute. And grain-finished, implanted cattle produce around 40% less greenhouse gas, he says.

That’s because feeding implanted, or even non-implanted cattle, reduces the amount of time it takes to get the beef to market.

“If we look at the land-use equation from the amount of acre-days that are needed to produce one pound of beef, an organic grass-fed system required just over 5 acre-days of land to produce a pound of beef,” Avery says. “Just about 2 acre-days (were required) for a pound of beef produced with grain finishing without the help of growth promotants and only 1 2/3 acre-days for a pound of beef produced with grain finishing with growth promotants.”

Cattle finished on a grass-based system produced about twice as much enteric methane during the finishing phase, he says, compared with grain-fed animals with growth promotants.

Follow this link to see the entire Hudson Institute study.

How much more land and labor will Chuck require? We can already make an educated guess that he will require more resources to reach your plate than his fellow herd mates. In the end, even if Chuck is entirely sustainable and natural, could we feed a nation, village or family year-round using those same practices?

Year-to-Date Weather Summary

Hi Temperature: 90.3 deg F, 32.4 deg C
Low Temperature: -12.9 deg F, -25 deg C
Precipitation: 23.75 in, 60.32 cm
Avg. Wind: 6.8 mph, 10.9 kmph
Hi Wind: 47 mph, 75.6 kmph

Our high temperature in February was 46/7.7 degrees F/C, our low was -7/-21.6 degrees F/C, and our mean temperature was 22.3/-5.38 degrees F/C, which is 5.7/2.8 degrees F/C below average.

We received .52 in /1.32 cm of liquid precipitation (rain, melted snow) and 4 in/10.16 cm of solid precipitation (snow, ice, etc.).

What does this mean for us? The long answer is in the next paragraph, but the short answer is that it increased our feed costs by about .04/head/day. It also required more run-time from our tank heaters, but it's difficult to put a number on exactly how much more propane they used.

Colder temperatures raised our herd's energy requirement, thus increasing their consumption and our cost. If we use February's mean temperature of 22.3F/-5.38C and feed 5 lbs/2.27 kgs of corn per head per day with 15% waste (moisture, spillage, etc.), each cow requires 32 lbs /14.5 kgs of hay each day to meet her energy and nutrition requirements. If we use our cost of production for both corn and hay, our feed costs work out to be roughly $1.57/head/day. If we use the normal average mean temperature for February (28F/-2.2C) and feed the same amount of corn, each cow's hay requirement drops by 1 lb/.45kg per day. This would drop our feed costs to $1.53/head/day, a difference of four cents.