Eating grass, producing waste, requiring space, labor, and disposal of concentrated waste (too much cow dung goes beyond fertilization) is energy intensive, which is what the parent comment was bringing up.

Cost goes beyond the labor (which is what I am taking your comment to focus on)

1. Grass costs nothing, it's already there and we can't eat it. You have to shred it so it doesn't grow too high anyway.

2. Again, pastures are already there, nothing else is on them.

3. Perfect, that's more jobs, but I know small family farms with 100 head of cattle with no extra ranch hands.

4. Not really, unless they are very large farms, but at very large scales making artificial meet will have challenges too, much more complex than shoveling shit.

> 1. Grass costs nothing, it's already there and we can't eat it. You have to shred it so it doesn't grow too high anyway.

> 2. Again, pastures are already there, nothing else is on them.

We’ve gone way beyond pasture just “being there” to rely on for animal agriculture at the rate we do it. Look at BLM grazing rates which are there to pay for renewing the grassland but to rate limit how many animal graze or the grassland would be destroyed. Amazon in Brazil is also being cut back constantly to create new pasture land

> 3. Perfect, that's more jobs, but I know small family farms with 100 head of cattle with no extra ranch hands.

If doing things inefficiently just to create jobs is a good idea, we might as well ban shovels and backhoes and make everyone dig with spoons

> We’ve gone way beyond pasture just “being there” to rely on for animal agriculture at the rate we do it. Look at BLM grazing rates which are there to pay for renewing the grassland but to rate limit how many animal graze or the grassland would be destroyed. Amazon in Brazil is also being cut back constantly to create new pasture land

A large part of America was already grassland. Many other parts the land aren't great, but cattle can still graze over it even with really sparse or dry vegetation.

> If doing things inefficiently just to create jobs is a good idea, we might as well ban shovels and backhoes and make everyone dig with spoons

I'm talking about families raising cattle on their private land and continuing to do so, not about banning shovels, backhoes, or meat.

>A large part of America was already grassland. Many other parts the land aren't great, but cattle can still graze over it even with really sparse or dry vegetation.

a large part of America was already grassland, but that doesn't mean it can handle infinite herds, hence the BLM grazing fees[1]. This is also ignoring the fact that I was referring to pasture land globally when I included references to the Amazon.

>I'm talking about families raising cattle on their private land and continuing to do so, not about banning shovels, backhoes, or meat.

Private land means nothing when you say "Perfect, that's more jobs". You should talk about how inefficiency is acceptable if it spreads work across more small businesses then, and I will argue with you on that point. I care 0% about family's keeping their small businesses together if it means the rest of us have high prices. If those families take more money to create the same amount of food as a large scale farm, then I give zero shits if they lose the family farm. I would prefer that an enterprise takes over, produces food at a lower cost, and then sells me food at that lower cost due to the competition that capitalism causes.

Could you please explain to me why I should care about the family farm asking for my tax dollars to subsidize them while they complain that my liberal lifestyle is unacceptable and should be prevented by law?

[1]https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-and-forest-service-ann...

If we go off thermodynamics there is a lot of energy being wasted in producing the meat, even if that energy isn't expended by those tending the cattle.

To say nothing of the animal suffering involved, we currently expend ~10x the calories we get from the beef producing it (IIRC). If we could get even to 5x that'd be a huge environmental win.

Edit: Looking it up, beef sits at 25x, and chicken 9x. So, a lot of room for efficiency improvements.

does that include bioavailability of those calories to humans?

from this anecdotal source: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/sbfn6b/c...

1lb of grass to humans = 32kcals / lb

1lb of grass to cows = 800kcals / lb

800/32 = 25x

Assuming you grow something other than grass on that pasture to eat (also assuming it isn't marginal land which makes up 2/3 of agricultural land), wouldn't that other plant extract approximately the same amount of calories from the sun? And wouldn't the bioavailability of that plant also be lesser than that of meat?

First, most cows are not grass fed. They are largely fed things that have bioavailable calories for humans, like soy. Likewise, chickens mainly consume corn.

Second, farm animals are not 100% efficient in absorbing calories and converting them to meat calories, so the 25x going from grass to beef is meaningless, assuming you were attempting o make some connection to my 25x figure on beef production efficiency.

Third, agricultural land is not all used for meat, and I'd need a source for that 2/3 being marginal figure. Looking it up I see ~2/3 (60%) of ag land is used for beef, but it is not all marginal. Beef is the main cause of Amazon deforestation for example.

Forth, if we just go by land use to globally consumed calories, cows, despite using 60% of ag land, only make up 2% of consumed calories. If we make an absurd assumption that 50% of all calories come from non-farmed sources, that still leaves 40% of ag land producing 48% of the world's calories in comparison, which would include non-beef meat as well.

Finally, just because the land wouldn't have much use to humans if we didn't use it for cows, doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit the planet, and us, if we stopped using it for such.

Ok, switch from cattle to bison then. Lab growing isn't going to be economically feasible for a long time yet.

Are bison more thermodynamically efficient than cows?

I think there is a big difference between intensive animal farming (growing animal feed like corn and soy to then grow animals with) and letting animals graze on natural grassland. For example grazing works in non-arable land (eg hills / mountains / rocky areas) and is therefore (I'm guessing) a more efficient form of food production for these areas than whatever else could be done there. On the other hand, growing plants on farms specifically to feed livestock, probably not very energy efficient compared to growing plants for direct human consumption on the same farms.

The price of goods aren’t the only relevant cost here, there’s also the carbon cost. As a Brazilian rancher, you must be aware of the massive cost the world is paying for Amazonian deforestation to produce arable land.

I'm sure parent meant the field on lab grown meat, not naturally grown.

This was asking about energy efficiency, though. The vast majority of the energy ever consumed by an animal is used in processes other than growth. The ability to grow meat without it needing to be part of an organism that has to be able to also grow a skeleton, reproductive system, be able to move and think, and other energetically expensive processes in addition to growing muscle, seemingly has to be possible for less energy cost than supporting an entire animal lifecycle.

Whether it can be done entirely using solar is another question, but free-grazing animals that only consume energy from local grass are not anywhere near prolific enough to feed the entire planet.

I have extended family doing the same in South Brazil. But those cows require a bit of care, a fair chunk of land, and release a large amount of methane. Lab meat will beat it in the end one day when all costs are considered.