A lot to be desired?

Feedlots first featured on the US agri-landscape about 60 years ago. Also known as concentrated animal feeding operations, the lots began appearing in the late 1950s. They were an outcome of the burgeoning corn industry that had experienced significant productivity growth post-World War II because of new hybrid developments, more effective pesticides and greater use of nitrogen fertiliser and irrigation.

In 1964 half of all beef cows in the US were finished on grassland systems – by the new millennium that had fallen to less than 5%. Boosted by cheap, subsidised grain and soy supplies feedlots were responsible for changing the type and breed of animal farmed in the US. 

As cattle numbers peaked in the 1970s then began to fall, feedlot stock numbers were maintained by feeding lighter, younger animals for longer. 

Through the 70s the average January 1 inventory of feedlots was 13 million head, against an average “all cattle” inventory of 120m, or 11%. The replacement or feeder supply was about 42m, or three feeders for every animal already in a feedlot. 

However, the situation has changed since with feedlot significance growing despite the total cattle numbers in the US going into decline. Total cattle numbers in the US have waned since a peak of 132m head in 1975 but have since settled at about 90m head in 2013. 

By 2005 the largest 2% of feedlot companies accounted for 85% of finished cattle and by 2012 feedlot numbers represented 15% of total US cattle numbers, with the remainder of cattle inevitably tagged for a feedlot as their final destination in the finishing process. At that time the sector was struggling under high corn prices induced by drought, making the lots’ ability to feed lighter animals for longer unprofitable and invoking major lot closures and consolidation.

With the drop in oil and corn feed prices, which form about 80% of the feedlot rearing costs, 2015 looks set to have the numbers of cattle on feedlots increase again. This will come after last year’s small 1% increase, the first for a decade.

The evolution of the feedlot from small-scale, 5000-head operations in the 1960s to massive 100,000-plus head units has not been without debate in the US. 

As sizes have grown control has consolidated to four operators that control 80% of the market. Such concentrated levels of ownership have not gone unnoticed. Former US Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman was prompted to point out that in the 1920s the concentration of only 50% of the industry in the hands of five companies provoked the government to enact anti-trust regulations.

One reason for the apparent lack of concern today is the success of a system that delivers Americans the cheapest meat in the world. 

‘Pollen calculated his steer consumed about 1000 litres of oil over his 14 month life-time’

Happy consumers are supposedly less inclined to question the methods or impacts of intensive practices that keep their plates and wallets full.

One of the more vocal opponents of feedlot systems’ intensive operations has been renowned journalist and author Michael Pollen. In a New York Times Magazine article, Power steer, Pollen described his odyssey to visit a steer he had earlier bought on its feedlot site in Kansas. 

His lengthy essay highlighted the industrial reality of taking grass-reared grazers and inserting them into an all-grain system, complete with daily rations of a rumen-modifying antibiotic to enable them to adapt to the “hot ration” of grain after a lifetime diet of grass.

Pollen’s story provides an insightful, balanced view of the business of feedlot operations by equally recognising the relationship operators have with their animals along with the negatives of industrialised food production. 

These cover issues around waste management including controlling piles of excrement containing an assortment of bacteria – E. coli 157 as the worst – and hormone treatments. 

The negatives also extend back as far as the nitrogen-intensive corn industry and further back still to the oil industry. Pollen calculated his steer consumed about 1000 litres of oil over his 14-month lifetime.

“We have succeeded in transforming a solar-powered ruminant to the very last thing we need – another fossil fuel machine.”

Other critics of “Big Pharma” farming have pointed to “ag-gag” regulations enforced in large cattle states like Kansas that restrict the ability of critics to film and publicise the impact
large-scale, industrialised farming can have on the environment. 

The “ag-gag” phrase was coined by New York Times food writer Mark Bittman regarding legislation intended to silence anyone investigating and filming activity in large-scale food production operations. The purpose of the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act is to make it a crime to film at animal facilities with the intent to “defame a facility or its owner”.

So far five states have the law in place including Iowa, Arkansas and South Carolina but the bill has been defeated in 12 of the 19 other states it was introduced to. A Utah woman was charged under the law for filming cruelty to a cow in 2013, only to have them dropped after media drew attention to the charges.

Feedlot operators have also come under the spot light for the environmental impact that yarding thousands of animals in one place brings, along with the upstream impact of extensive corn cropping’s impact on aquifer depletion and nitrogen run-off.

Fast food, US-style

How to turn a 35kg calf into a 540kg steer in only 14 months:

• Born 35kg – Weaned on grass-based ranchland to a cow-calf operator and kept to 6-10 months of age.
• 270-300kg – Moved to “stocker operator” at 8-14 months on large ranchland operation. Animals may be corralled into pens as conditioning for feedlot transfer.
• 350kg-400kg – Transferred to feedlot for finishing over 120-180 days. Grass diet replaced with high-energy, corn-based diet. Other dietary additives include coccidiostat to reduce infections, ionophores to increase feed efficiency, growth hormones to increase growth rate and muscle formation, and probiotics to reduce manure production.
• 550kg – Slaughtered.