"pearl" > wrote
> The meat industry tend to water-down this low efficiency rate
> by figuring-in lifelong forage consumption to their calculations,
> which doesn't give us the true conversion ratio of grain > beef.

*During the finishing stage*, which only involves ~10-15% of the weight, not
during the whole life of the steer. It doesn't matter anyway, grain is less
valuable, less desirable and less nutritious/kg than beef, so you can't make
a direct comparsion. The comparison between beef and potatoes per acre
suffers from the same problem. If grain were relatively more scarce, and
hence more highly valued (priced), then it would not be used as feed, and
grazing animals would only be finished using waste and by-product materials,
or not at all, which would render this whole topic moot.