[Zababa]

> Meat production has become less land intensive compared to 200 years ago, but it is by far the worst way of producing food if you compare calory intake to land use.

Most meat, at least in France, is raised on land that couldn't support other kind of agriculture. The calorie intake of that land, without cows grazing on it, would be 0.

[Glawen]

I doubt so, farmers in my village in France never take their cows out of the barn. They feed them with dry grass and fermented corn (ensilage) they grow.

Cow grazing is a thing of the past unless you do milk for AOP cheese or premium meat. By the way cheap beef in supermarket is actually old milk cow

[wumpus]

France doesn't use feedlots? In the US, half of the meat weight is added to cattle in feedlots, using 1/2 of US corn production.

[barry-cotter]

No European country does really. Nor do Australia and New Zealand to my knowledge. That’s why the beef tastes so much better. Cattle that are grass fed taste very different.

[wumpus]

https://idele.fr/?eID=cmis_download&oID=workspace://SpacesSt...

French beef and dairy-cattle-finally-eaten-as-beef eat 2/3 grass.

[barry-cotter]

Yes. You asked about feedlots. Europe pretty much doesn’t have them, as I said. Note that beef cattle are 80% grass fed according to the document. Dairy that are eventually eaten eat less grass, 2/3.

[wumpus]

I was talking about more than feedlots, I was talking about grass-fed cattle vs. not grass-fed cattle. Do you really think it matters if a cow eats grain in a "feedlot" instead of on a "farm"? I sure don't.

[Zababa]

The document you linked has 38.3% of "grazed grass" and 26.3% of "conserved grass". That's 64.6% of grass.