How much corn does it take to raise a head of cattle, from birth through slaughterhouse?

Question

Food crisis has me wondering—how many more people could be fed by eating the corn that goes into raising a head of cattle than by eating the meat?

Answer 1

You dont feed cows corn their whole lives, only when they are little and when you are getting ready to take them to the slaughter house.

Answer 2

Well, don't have the numbers on corn per head but currently about 50% of the corn crop goes to animal feed (25% now goes to ethanol or the feed percentages would be higher). That includes beef, poultry, pork, and now farmed fish which get it now too. However, that's hardly the only grain that's used to feed animals. Corn and soy are rotation crops and most of the soy crop in the United States, Brazil and Argentina goes to animal feed (in fact, China imports soy to feed their animals and they are eating much more now with their increased wealth but don't have the land needed to grow all the feed -- this causes the loss of Rainforest).

But it is still more than that. Animals are fed some awful stuff in the industrial process. They are fed the by-products of their own slaughter for instance. Cows get fed chicken feather meal and litter while the chickens are fed cow bits since it's currently illegal to feed cows to cows (although they are still fed blood products from cows). Pigs will get fed garbage.

There's more though; from Michael Pollan:

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The way we grow corn in this country consumes tremendous quantities of fossil fuel. Corn receives more synthetic fertilizer than any other crop, and that fertilizer is made from fossil fuels — mostly natural gas. Corn also receives more pesticide than any other crop, and most of that pesticide is made from petroleum. To plow or disc the cornfields, plant the seed, spray the corn and harvest it takes large amounts of diesel fuel, and to dry the corn after harvest requires natural gas. So by the time your “green” raw material arrives at the ethanol plant, it is already drenched in fossil fuel. Every bushel of corn grown in America has consumed the equivalent of between a third and a half gallon of gasoline.

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Not in those figures apparently is the petro required to get the crop chemicals to the farmer from the manufacturers nor to the feed producers or from the feed makers to the animals and then the animals to the slaughterhouse and then to the stores to be bought.

And still worse because we import over 80% of our fish and seafood so that is extra transport as well (even while the fisheries are collapsing from over-fishing). From World Watch Institute:

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Worldwide, fishers catch an estimated 18–40 million tons of fish and other marine creatures that are discarded—as much as half of all official marine landings.

In 2000, the world’s fishing fleets burned about 43 million tons of fuel to catch 80 million tons of fish. In other words, they use 12.5 times as much energy to catch fish as the fish provide to those who eat them.

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However, that corn that mostly goes to animal feed, ethanol, and then the myriad of other products including nearly every product on the store shelves is not very nutritious anymore having had that part bred out in favor of pure starch and that so much of the land it's grown on is now sterile and nutrient leached soil from all the years of growing an intensive crop such as corn. What would be better is if we grew other, much more varied things on that land which would restore the health to everything.

So, to sum up, all that feed and animals too are grown on prime land that could be growing other more nutritious stuff rather than petro-intensive animal feed.

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EDIT to address wahoo100... and the claim that cattle are grown on grass that won't support anything else. This just isn't true. From Mark Bittman in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekin...

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[A]n estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

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Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.

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Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.

Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough.

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Calorie for calorie the beef requires 10 times as much grain. Given that meat is a calorie dense food (while not being a nutrient dense food like most plant-based foods) 16 pounds of grain per pound of edible beef is not exaggeration. Not even for the "Veg*n Agenda" purposes.

Answer 3

If you had five acres of good farm land, you could produce enough beef to feed one person. That same five acres will feed five vegetarians.

Answer 4

A widely accepted amount is that around 16 pounds of grain (in this case corn) would produce 1 pound of beef.  If you're average steer is 1000 pounds that would mean it would need to eat 16,000 lbs. of grain.  That's eight tons!!

Answer 5

about 500 bushels to yield a 800 lb steer. i like bison better they will eat grass and like it.

Answer 6

Cows don't eat only corn. The bulk of their diet consists of food we can't eat. I think the figure is around 8-14 pounds of silage(fermented complete grain plant), hay, grass, forage and grain per pound of beef. Dairy cows are typically slaughtered at age 5-7 and other cows slaughtered around age 2-3. Weight is usually around 800-1200 lbs at slaughter and only about 40% of it actually turns into edible meat. They also require a ton of water for feeding, cleaning and processing.

With the global rise in food prices I think going vegetarian is a very logical choice to make. Farms used to grow cattle feed can be used to grow people feed. We can also adopt sustainable farming practices to ensure we don't poison the land for future generations.

Answer 7

I don't know specifically about corn, but a whole lot of grains, for sure. Some statistics to consider:

- 70% of grains used to feed animals that can feed the billions of starving people around the world.

- The world's cattle alone need massive quantity of food, equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people.

- Amount of feed needed to produce just one 8-ounce steak would fill 45 to 50 bowls with cooked cereal grains

- The 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to make 1 pound of beef.

- Reducing U.S. meat production by 10 percent would free grain to feed 60 million people.

Answer 8

I am not sure the exact amount, but there is also water and power to consider.  It takes a lot of water to raise and process animals.  I just wanted to give you another aspect to think of:)

Answer 9

Many of the arguments given here are misinformed or purposely distorting the facts.  Much of beef weight is put on by grass on land that would grow nothing else.  But those facts do not fit the veg*n agenda.

Answer 10

16lbs of grain per 1 pound of beef.

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/environmen...