Water Needed to Produce Beef Vs Cricket Protein
Animals Are Inefficient Converters of FoodFeed Conversion RatiosFeed:Meat RatiosMainstream Feed Conversion RatiosFCR Mainstream ExamplesMore Comprehensive FCRsEnergy Flows in the Broader Nutrient SystemConclusion: Feed vs. Nutrient
Animals Are Inefficient Converters of Nutrient
That farmed animals consume more than food than they produce is undisputed.
The question is not "IF" animals are inefficient food converters, but "HOW" inefficient are they?
How much food (calories, protein, and nutrients) is lost past cycling crops through animals for meat versus eating a found-based diet directly? And what are the consequences to food security, personal health, and the planet?
What Are Feed Conversion Ratios?
Feed Conversion Ratios (FCRs) measure the amount of feed/crops needed to produce a unit of meat.
FCRs and related bug are more often than not discussed in terms of "efficiency."
For example, chickens are more efficient converters crops that cows. They have a lower FCR, meaning that information technology takes less feed to create a pound of chicken than a pound of beef.
However, given the inherent loss of crops and natural resource involved in producing meat and other animal sourced foods (ASF), "inefficiency" is a far more than authentic term.
For example, cows are far more inefficient than chickens in terms of feed ratios. Unfortunately, (spoiler alert) chickens are still very inefficient in that they consume more than twice as many calories and protein than they produce.
This is an example of the importance of language. Producing meat is inherently inefficient, but since the livestock manufacture creates much of the language (and math), they are able skew public perception.
Feed:Meat Ratios –> Computing FCRs
For practical reasons, feed ratios are generally assigned based on creature species (see below).
Broad estimates are sometimes even used to correspond the entire category of meat (ex: meat requires 10x more crops than feeding people directly).
We as well use these shortcuts for illustrative purposes, while acknowledging that that there is wide variation in the actual FCRs of detail animals based on age, breed, internal and external environment, type of feed, and a multitude of other factors.
As interdisciplinary scientist Valcav Smil explains, "definite rate is valid merely for a particular animal, herd, or flock." (p.146)
The section below explains some of the factors that produce vastly different published numbers and makes recommendations based on the well-nigh useful measures.
The calculations correspond FCRs for ingather-fed farmed animals. In other words, how much more food each animal consumes than they produce. Typical feed crops are grains and legumes: corn, soy, and wheat.
These numbers are important equally crop-fed, factory/conventionally-farmed animals are the norm in industrialized countries and the global growth-rate of meat is alarmingly high. Intensive (factory) farming represents the overwhelming bulk (>98%) of meat produced in the United States.
SIDE NOTE: Manufacturing plant subcontract opponents sometimes promote grass-fed cattle as an eco-friendly culling. Unfortunately, grass-fed ruminants (cows, goats, sheep, etc) are actually more destructive in terms of climate change. Grass-fed cattle emit 3x more than methane than ingather-fed cattle and are the cause of massive deforestation to create grazing pastures.
Mainstream Feed Conversion Ratios
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- Chickens – 2x-5x
- Pigs – 4x-9x
- Cows – 6x-25x
*These are mainstream/heart-range estimates.
Live weight FCRs – will have lower ratios because they represent the number of pounds in ingather that animals eat to proceeds ane pound while they are alive.
Edible weight FCRs – volition have higher ratios because they more accurately represent the corporeality ready-to-eat of meat produced after slaughter and processing.
Even with edible weight, there volition be variations such as carcass/hanging weight and final/take-home (which is roughly half of live weight for pigs and one-third for cows — thus doubling and tripling the inefficiency ratios — more when boneless). See detailed chart.
Most of the caloric energy animals eat is used to fuel their metabolism and to form bones, cartilage, feathers, fluids, and other non-edible parts. Thus, the inefficiencies more than double when liquid weight is removed – the weight of the h2o, blood, and other bodily fluids. Further weight loss occurs with the removal of basic and other non-consumable body parts.
Often times, the food industry will publish the low end FCRs, which minimizes the perceived waste. Those without a vested interest in animate being agriculture and/or manufacture critics are more likely to publish the higher (more accurate) post-processing carcass or boneless numbers.
Even if method is held constant, there will be a variation in FCRs. Other factors that impact FCRs include: type/quality/moisture of feed, fauna age, breed, activity level, number of offspring, and a host of other variables.
There is a cracking deal of focus on improving these factors in reduce inefficiencies, merely the inherent waste matter of cycling crops through animals remains. Adjusting these factors merely shaves downwardly some of the numbers without addressing the core issue that feeding animals to produce food is a massive net loss of bachelor global calories and protein.
Consider how telling it is that a two:1 loss of food crops is considered very efficient and cause to gloat. When we talk food waste, would we consider losing one-half of all crops "good?"
FCR Mainstream Examples
Live Weight
- half dozen:one – beef cows – Beef Magazine (manufacture)
- 6:1 – beef cows, 3.four:1 – pigs, 2:1 – poultry – Noble Foundation (industry)
- vii:1 – beef cows, 4:ane – pigs, ii-1 – chickens – Brown (advocate)
- 8-12:1 – beef cows, 5-half-dozen.5:1 – pigs, 2-2.five:i – chickens – Smil (p.157) via Cassidy (p.6)
Edible Weight (more accurate)
- xvi:i – beef cows – Lappe (Diet for a Small Planet, 1991, p.69) – (frequently-cited abet)
- 25:one – beef cows, 9.4:1 – pigs, 4.5:one – chickens – Smil (EM/2008 via UKY) (researcher)
More Comprehensive FCRs
Percentage/Units of Edible Output per 100 Units of Feed
- Poultry – Calories – 11% – Protein 20%
- Pigs – Calories – ten% – Protein xv%
- Cows/Beefiness – Calories – 1% – Protein – iv%
Source: Earth Resources Constitute (w/UN & WB): Creating a Sustainable Food Future, p.37
New, more than comprehensive methods testify that even the high-end of commonly cited FCRs are highly conservative.
Mayhap the most accurate way to gauge the inefficiencies of animal sourced food production is to summate the sector-wide phytomass (plant biomass) energy that goes into animal production versus how much energy comes out in the form of animal sourced foods.
In other words, what portion of plant energy dedicated to raising animals becomes edible calories in the grade of meat, dairy, and eggs. This method looks beyond costs associated with a single brute and instead at the the energy flows in the broader food system.
By calculating the fates and flows of phytomass free energy on a macro scale, it is possible to track how and where nutrient energy is beingness wasted in the production of various nutrient products.
Energy Flows in the Broader Food System
The inefficiencies expressed every bit "units of edible output per 100 units of feed input," are lower than the previous feed conversion calculations considering they are based on free energy flows from plant phytomass to edible animate being parts. For example, they factor in feed that gets wasted before it reaches livestock animals, the plant mass that goes to non-feed purposes such every bit bedding, the free energy grass and other provender that goes into feeding livestock, and the energy needed to support animate being production beyond just producing animals.
Many animals involved in livestock production do not directly produce nutrient, such as animals that are inevitably culled, that die earlier reaching maturity, and that are used in breeding. (Stefan Wirsenius, Human Use of Land and Organic Materials, 2000)
Wirsenius's work takes a macro look at the food system, calculating how much phytomass is appropriated for food production in the form of pasture and cropland, related to how much food is produced. This method is helpful considering it gets at the total food free energy that into fauna agronomics every bit a system.
According to previous estimates, over two-thirds of phytomass energy appropriation is dedicated to farmed animal production, despite that the sector only produces about 13% of full food calories.
In the same way that 1 can get an authentic estimate of how much a higher didactics volition toll by including the cost of housing, supplies, and other living expenses with the cost of tuition, and then as well can one get a more than accurate estimate of the inefficiency with which farmed animals convert plants to creature sourced foods past because the feed needs (including pasture and grain) of the animal agriculture sub-sectors.
Some other strength in Wirsenius'due south method is that, dissimilar the previous feed conversion methods that only calculate conversions in terms of feed such as soy or corn, information technology also factors grass and fodder into its calculations.
Grain weight is easier to quantify since producers tend to purchase and feed information technology to animals in given weights, whereas the amount of grass and fodder animals consume on pasture tin can only exist roughly estimated.
In this gross energy calculation that looks at all phytomass appropriation involved in food production, pasture state is the largest source of phytomass energy. This, combined with the inherent feed conversion inefficiencies of cattle, are one of the reasons why beef production is i of the least efficient forms of nutrient production.
While phytomass that is not in not edible to humans is often discounted in determining the ingather costs and opportunity costs of using animals for food, much of the land cleared for pasture could also be used for crop product, so it should exist thought of as forgone found-based nutrient production. There are likewise significant ecology impacts related to clearing wilderness areas for pasture land/
Just even if we were to adjust these calculations to remove the phytomass free energy derived from non-edible material, such as grass on open up pasture or the straw that is used every bit bedding in some animal operations, there would all the same be a dramatic difference in the quantity of food that can exist yielded as edible calories for homo consumption from livestock nutrient and from establish-based protein alternatives.
Conclusion: Feed vs. Food
Regardless of the exact numbers, producing crops (soy, corn, wheat, etc.) for beast feed is many times more resources-intensive than using crops for direct human consumption. While in that location are perilous merchandise-offs related to fuel vs. nutrient, a more serious business organization for a multifariousness of reasons is feed vs. food.
With 75% of all agricultural land used for creature production—and more a tertiary of global calories and half of global protein inefficiently used every bit animal feed —the impact of increasing global meat consumption is monumental. (ERL p.two-iii)
For more on the opportunity costs of animal agriculture, please see: Cassidy'southward "Redefining Agricultural Yields: From Tonnes to People Nourished Per Hectare."
Additional Notes
From the Vegetarian Resource Group
"[F]eed is NOT synonymous with "concentrates" such as grains and legumes. Some USDA tables may use "as-fed" feed values which means the moisture content of the feed (which may vary between 7 and lxx% of the feed weight itself) is included. Similar tables found in other sources may be based on 'dry matter weight' which excludes all weight of the feedstuff due to water."
"A big portion of the diets of ruminant livestock, including cattle, sheep and goats, consists of feedstuffs that are not edible past humans such as pasture, hay and crop residues (i.e., corn stalks). In some regions of the world, ruminants subsist entirely on these. Yet, almost ruminant livestock produced under intensive conditions, (i.e., feedlots), exercise spend a significant part of their life eating grains and soybean byproducts, such as soybean meal and soybean oil, that are human-edible."
"The state of affairs is different with monogastric livestock, (i.e., animals with one tum), such as hogs and poultry. Nether intensive rearing weather condition that are common in the United States, their nutrition consists almost exclusively of human-edible grains and legumes. So for these species, their feed is almost all grain and legume."
Recommended Sources
Cassidy, Emily et al, "Redefining Agricultural Yields: From Tonnes to People Nourished Per Hectare." Environmental Research Letters, V. 8(3). IOPScience, September 2013, p. 2-3. http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/iii/034015
Smil, Vaclav, Feeding the World: A Challenge for the 21st Century, MIT Press, 2000, p. 145-157.
Yacoubou, Jeanne, "Factors Involved in Computing Grain:Meat Conversion Ratios." Vegetarian Resources Group, terminal accessed October 2015. www.vrg.org/environment/grain_meat_conversion_ratios.php
Terminal updated Oct 26, 2015
Source: https://awellfedworld.org/feed-ratios/
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