*For Australia at least 40% of our entire beef supply and 80% of all beef sold in supermarkets are produced by feedlots.*

Bugsy, the figures from the feedlotters are a little misleading,
if you don't understand them.

Yes, alot of cattle are finished in feedlots, but note the word
finished.

Off the top of my head, we have around 25 million cattle in Aus,
around 1 million, depending on a number of variables, are in feedlots
at any one time. So most are happily living free range.

For a steer to enter a feedlot, it needs a mother, it needs to grow
up to a reasonable size etc. All done free range.

Finishing off cattle on grain, is really about consumer choice and
taste. People generally mostly want tender meat that is not dark
cutting. Feedlotting boosts muscle glycogen levels, which means
lighter coloured meat, more tender. Also feedlotting improves
marbling. Its in that marbled fat, where the flavour is.

Much of the grain used for feedlotting, is not suitable for human
consumption. For instance, right now there are millions of tonnes
of rain damaged wheat, which is unsuitable for bread or biscuits
or noodles, but makes for great stockfeed. Its cheaper, so the
lotfeeders love it and the farmers have a market for that otherwise
unwanted grain, so its a win-win situation.

It seems to me that the figures quoted by the lotfeeders, have
a bit of spin in there, to promote their industry. For of course
they don't produce cows or calves in feedlot. They buy them in
when nearly full grown and add a few kg, finishing them off, ready
for fussy consumers.

The market is quite specific. You have long fed and short fed etc.
The Japanese prefer long fed and pay extra. On the other end you
have hamburger beef, which is mostly what we export. The Americans
buy it, as ours is lean compared to theirs, because its mostly
free range.

Yes Yabby I understand all this, believe me, I do. But feedlot fed animals are not 100% 'free range'. Nor are they produced by factory methods, under cover their whole lives. Citing a '0 percent factory' is NOT the same as 'all free range', as Mark seems to believe.

But the fact remians that lotfed beef is fed what? Grain. In fact, the inputs on lotfed beef are far higher than inputs on 'free range' grassfed beef. This is just a fact, I am not arguing against it. I am merely arguing against the incorrect use of figures.

And as for that, I wonder where Mark gets his 'brief glance at the figures' and cites a 10% figure (in his opinion high!)? Out of the 'rear filing cabinet'? When many other estimates are actually far higher than that. This sort of argument from someone who demands stats to back up arguments is just bizarre.

BTW Mark, yes I could have cited stats (it is an assumption of yours that I didn't look them up), but where would be the fun in that?

*For Australia at least 40% of our entire beef supply and 80% of all beef sold in supermarkets are produced by feedlots.*

Bugsy, this was your claim. It was what I was disputing, for it
is clearly not the case. Just because an animal spent a few days
in a feedlot, does not mean that it was produced by the feedlot.

Only part of a feedlot ration is grain. Hay, silage, all are part
of a ruminant diet. In fact ruminants on pure grain would develop
all sorts of problems. Grain is used as part of the diet, to boost
energy and protein.

But cows and sheep need to chew the cud, so they need lots of
roughage.

Yabby, it's not 'my' claim, it's from the Australian Lot Feeder Association.

http://www.feedlots.com.au

Make of that what you will.

FAO estimates we need to double food production by 2050 to feed the world. How will this be done? The achievements of the green revolution will pale into insignificance compared to the job that is needed.

The elephant in the room is not methane production either from grass fed or grain fed (that debate is less than helpful); it is, as has been stated, population growth.

Agriculture has to perform and perform as it has never done before. The problems of resource degradation must be addressed. The notion of recreating pristine environments is folly if food production falters given those growth projections – the whole lot will be lost if serious hunger occurs.

The SKI generation (Spend Kid’s Inheritance) epitomises the heart of the problem – we live for ourselves maximising personal benefit not caring about others. Until those values change we remain a wicket on to a hiding in life.

It seems that the “warmertariat” has all the answers. So no coal, no nuclear, no dams, no meat, ride a bicycle, drive an electric car, use wind energy, use solar, pay for all this with a carbon tax and don’t have any babies.

Interestingly the “warmertariat” has never actually been pathfinders in showing us how this can be done, they just want the rest of us to pay for and fulfill their fantasies for them.

When are we going to see the “warmertariat” submit a development application to establish the Warmerville Commune? There are lots of places in Australia ideally located a long way from the rest of us, where this new utopian commune could be established.

Better still, there would be no need for us to listen to the constant grinding proselytizing of warmertariat alarmism, which is necessary to extract our money; instead they would be using their own money, time and effort.

I imagine there would be a constant flow of visitors to Warmerville including Eco-tourists, industrialists, financiers, pastoralists and politicians, all following the developing “Good Life Commune” with keen interest.

The “Solutions” proposed by the Warmertariat are not new in either method or content. As we have seen so many times in our history, there are many with solutions but very few with the questions.

“It seems to me that the widespread acceptance of the global warming dogma has become one of the main, most costly and most undemocratic public policy mistakes in generations. The previous one was communism.”

Czech Republic President, Václav Klaus.