[i_am_proteus]

To present more of the picture here:

"Paige Stanley, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, says many of these studies have prioritized efficiency — high-energy feed, smaller land footprint — as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The larger the animal and the shorter its life, the lower its footprint. But she adds, "We're learning that there are other dimensions: soil health, carbon and landscape health. Separating them is doing us a disservice." She and other researchers are trying to figure out how to incorporate those factors into an LCA analysis.

Stanley co-authored a recent LCA study, led by Jason Rowntree of Michigan State University, that found carbon-trapping benefits of the grass-fed approach. Another recent LCA study, of Georgia's holistically managed White Oak Pastures, found that the 3,200-acre farm stored enough carbon in its grasses to offset not only all of the methane emissions from its grass-fed cattle, but also much of the farm's total emissions. (The latter study was funded by General Mills.)"

That's from your first link (npr dot org). Seems like the jury's still out on this one.

[seanwilson]

Is this a realistic alternative to factory farmed cows though? How expensive would it be? Would there be enough land? Would it produce enough beef? Could that land be used in a better way (e.g. forests, other crops)?

77% of global farm land is used by livestock already (https://ourworldindata.org/land-use) and is a leading cause of deforestation.

[i_am_proteus]

I get my beef from a local (pasture-raised, 100% grass-fed) farm and it costs about 10% more than the organic beef I see at the meat counter at Whole Foods (a grocery store).

Can't comment on if those prices would change with scale. I don't know if it's more or fewer head of cattle per acre compared to the maize needed for feedlot cattle. Maize is a pretty dense crop, so my guess would be fewer head per acre.

[rsj_hn]

Cattle is not treated like chickens. Beef cattle in the U.S. generally grazes on pastureland - most U.S. beef is already "free range", whereas dairy cows are mostly raised indoors. Only 10% of U.S. cattle are dairy cows.

Many cows go to fattening up centers before they are slaughtered, but the cattle don't spend their lives in them. In these centers many are fed corn -- so-called "grain finished" non-organic beef. This is the main difference between the feelgood beef and normal beef. The U.S. has ~120M acres devoted to pasture for ~80 million heads of cattle, about 1.5 acres per animal. This is land not fit for farming, so rather than saying we set aside 77% of global "farm" land for cattle, it's more accurate to say that without cattle converting grass to protein, 77% of the land devoted to food production would be abandoned. Of course you can argue it should be a wilderness -- millions of buffalo roamed on that grassland in the past.

There are an additional 10 million dairy cows living in conditions ranging from nice farm animals to horrific factory lots.

Saying that cattle is a "leading cause" of deforestation is misleading. Cattle graze on low productive land, usually more arid plains like in the Western U.S. (what was once called the Great American desert). You do not see large herds of cows wandering on farmland. You do see lots of cattle in the dry plains of Argentina.

What you mean is that a primary source of deforestation in the Amazon rain forest is the practice of slash and burn agriculture, which consists of setting fires that nourish the soil in lieu of fertilizer. This productive soil lasts about 18 months and then you need to set fire to more forest. Slash and burn was a pre-industrial farming technique widely practiced by Amazonian natives, but does not scale well in industrial application. Better to spend money on fertilizer and leave the rainforest alone.

It's true that after the 18 months (or so), the land is not productive farmland anymore but is still suitable for cattle. However you might as well say that the growing of vegetables is a leading cause of deforestation, since the would-be farmers are after the wood from the forest as well as the ~1.5 years of cash crops before the ground is only fit for cattle. Pastureland is not a good money maker, requiring so much land per animal. The rents obtained in this way are minimal.

[Symmetry]

Generally pasture land in the US at least doesn't get enough rainfall to be used as farmland without extensive irrigation, which isn't practical today given strains on aquifers. I don't think the US could maintain its beef habit entirely on what we can raise on pastures but I think we ought to be eating less meat anyways.

[seanwilson]

Is it realistic you could feed the world like this though? "If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land." (https://ourworldindata.org/land-use) It's not really an alternative if it isn't practical.