>The one third being used for cows is misleading. Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows—it’s more about politics and the fact that much of the land is good for little else besides growing grass.
The real land use from growing meat comes from the land used to grow the corn that feeds the cows. In the article, that’s counted as agricultural land, not pasture.
Probably also included in this estimate are the vast swaths of ranch land in the western states. While it's true that this land is used to feed livestock, for the most part this land is barren and empty, and it probably supports more deer, antelope, quail and other animals than it does livestock.
I believe there’s likely some inflated reporting with all AG census data.
As there’s massive tax breaks available for land owners to report grazing usage and maintain agricultural exemptions I’m not surprised to see such a number.
The reality I’ve seen is that almost all small-scale livestock production is barely utiling the land (if at all some years). A lot of small acreage land is used to produce donkeys and chickens so that the owners can maintain low taxes, but occasionally cattle, sheep and goats also.
The exception is the corporate owned farms and long term family ranches that generally have over utilization issues as they try to produce as much profit as possible. Those owners seem to produce the vast amount of food in the USA.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 14.7 ms ] thread>The one third being used for cows is misleading. Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows—it’s more about politics and the fact that much of the land is good for little else besides growing grass. The real land use from growing meat comes from the land used to grow the corn that feeds the cows. In the article, that’s counted as agricultural land, not pasture.
For more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17658236
As there’s massive tax breaks available for land owners to report grazing usage and maintain agricultural exemptions I’m not surprised to see such a number.
The reality I’ve seen is that almost all small-scale livestock production is barely utiling the land (if at all some years). A lot of small acreage land is used to produce donkeys and chickens so that the owners can maintain low taxes, but occasionally cattle, sheep and goats also.
The exception is the corporate owned farms and long term family ranches that generally have over utilization issues as they try to produce as much profit as possible. Those owners seem to produce the vast amount of food in the USA.
Here’s the cattle census for the US: https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resou...