Lower-nutrition grass could stymie grass-fed beef trend - Entrepreneur Generations

Iowa Beef Industry Council photo

Most beef cattle in the U.S. are finished on feedlots, bulked up with grains instead of the grass they evolved to eat. But more and more consumers are demanding grass-fed beef, saying that it's healthier to eat and better for the environment. "Sales have soared from $17 million in 2012 to $272 million in 2016. And industry analysts say grass-fed beef could make up 30 percent of the market within 10 years," Alex Smith reports for NPR.

There's a problem with the growing trend of grass-fed beef though: the grass they eat is becoming less nutritious. Researchers at Texas A&M University and Boulder, Colorado-based ecology outfit Jonah Ventures found this out after they studied cow poop collected from all over the country between 1994 and 2016. "Somewhere on the order of 50,000 cow pies got shipped to Texas for this study," Jonah Ventures co-owner Joe Craine told Smith.

The team found that crude protein in grass has dropped by almost 20 percent since the mid-90s. That's causing the cattle to gain less weight on grass than they would have in years past. The less-nutritious grass could hurt even conventional cattle, since many are grass-fed before finishing.

Craine has two theories on the cause for the drop. One is that cattle that are moved to feedlots don't poop on the prairie anymore, which means their manure can't deliver nutrients to the soil. He thinks rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere could be the other reason, since increased CO2 levels are have been linked to fewer nutrients in other grass plants like rice and wheat.

"Craine thinks this may be happening on a large scale in the prairie, and that it's just a matter of time before prairie grasses simply don't have enough protein to support grazing," Smith reports.

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2CYdXtN Lower-nutrition grass could stymie grass-fed beef trend - Entrepreneur Generations

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