Colorado Corn Cultivating Opportunities

In a world where the importance of a high-protein diet is widely recognized, consumers value the meat they eat and recognize the role it plays in keeping them healthy and strong. A lot of this has to do with what goes into the meat in the first place, and our food-sensitive culture often does not understand the role of grains in the livestock world.

“At National Corn Growers Association, many of our grower-leaders, myself included, have livestock feeding operations,” said NCGA President Darrin Ihnen. “I see the value every say of using corn as a natural, healthy and nutritious feed for our animals. Likewise, as someone involved in the industry, I see a lot of the myths that are out there about grain feed.”

In the first place, there is no clear division between “grass-fed” and “corn-fed.” Corn-fed beef actually spend most of their lives on a range or pasture, eating grass. At 9 to 12 months of age, they are moved to a feedlot for about four to six months, eating a balanced mixed meal of different grains hay, and forage. This allows them to grow more quickly.

“Grass-fed” cattle start the same way, but are finished with a diet of grass. Because it is hard to produce grass-fed beef in large quantities here in the United States, due to limited growing seasons, most grass-finished beef is imported from Australia and New Zealand where grass grows all year.

More details can be found on this fact sheet. What is essential to realize is that there is very little nutritional difference between the types of beef, and taste and tenderness tend to be better with grain-fed beef, as evidenced in a recent Time magazine taste test.

There is also an environmental benefit as well. The Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues issued a study in 2007 that found that beef produced with grains produces 40 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions and saves two-thirds more land for nature compared to organic grass-fed beef. When people are concerned about acreage and land use, that’s a good thing.

Of the 2010 corn harvest, the U.S. Department estimated that 5.4 billion bushels of corn will be used as livestock feed, along with an additional 1.5 billion bushels of distillers grains, a high-protein ethanol coproduct. That’s about 46 percent of the corn supply.

The distillers grains amount is important, because it is part of the corn that goes into ethanol production. This amount unfortunately is easily ignored by those who think that corn for ethanol takes corn away from livestock, which it does not. In fact, it puts important protein and nutrients into the food supply.