- Feb 4, 2006
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Also gasoline.
Clearly, nobody is buying bags of raw grain off the shelves.
It's interesting that the cost of corn is so low that it's cheaper than grass for cattle feed. That's why there has been a flip-flop of prices between grass-fed and grain-fed beef. Since biblical times, grain-fed beef had always been expensive (that's the "fatted calf" of scripture). But now, since only the 80s it's grass-fed beef that's cheaper.
Price subsidies to the grain industry combined with higher property taxes have made free-ranging cattle ranching less profitable than feedlot "ranching."
Don't conflate "free-ranging" (cow/cafe production) with "feedlot" ('finishing') cattle operations. They are both part of a system of producing beef. "Grass-fed" simply means finishing on grass instead of grain. Presently much grass-fed beef is imported as we lack the quality and quantity of grassland acreage to supply the domestic market.
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