"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

Stacey Jennings wrote in message
m...
Another twist to my situation is in my field as an Environmental
Student. Being in the area that you are in you should identify with
some of the points I am about to raise. Recently I took a
Sustainablity class as an elective for my Master's Degree. My papers
for this class focused on Industrial agriculture vs sustainable
agriculture. No one would argue that agriculture is the number one
consumer of the fresh water resources and contributes siginificanlty
to water pollution and the like.

this depends entirely on what part of the world you live in, it might be
true in the US but is not necessarily true in more industrialised or
intensively inhabited countries.

But people must eat but isn't it in
the best interest of all, not just the countries that have abundance
of water resources etc(if you can find one) to find the most efficient
means of doing this. Then to add in livestock production. It was
somewhat astonishing to sit down and go through article after article
of the extra resources that must be used to support a diet that is
meat based compared to that of a vegetarian. To see how many more
people can be fed with the grain and water used to raise just one cow.

which is fine, except did you read any of the articles that point out
the areas where you can grow beef but not cereals?
Also did you read any of the articles which showed you that in much of
the world the grain used is not suitable for human consumption. You
would not enjoy bread made from feed wheat.

He needs to take a trip through New Mexico. Hundreds of miles with out
enough rain to grow a tree except near the springs. Nothing west of western
Texas border will reliably raise dryland crops two years in a row with out
irrigation. You get very far west and nothing but some microclimates will
raise copes with out irrigation. That about a third of the USA.

Ruminates are one of the most important food sources on earth in arid
regions turning grasses, trees and forbs into top quality protien. Only in
countries that can raise a surplus of grain do you feed it to ruminants.
When I was running cows they seldom ate a bite of anything a human could eat
or took a bite of food from ground that could have fed a human. I did graze
wheat by adding extra nitrogen but on the average it had no effect on the
yield. Some years it would hurt it but some years it would help it.

Now the calves did go to the feed lot but that's the way it works today.
When my great grand folks first settled the ranch in 1874 they didn't get a
thing but grass and it can still be done that way. It works better if you
give them some added protien in the winter and we have a 3 billion pound of
cotton seed meal every year that is toxic to humans that is great for cattle
to feed them.

Far from being a luxury the cow, sheep or goat can be the difference between
making the arid lands habitable or not. Anyone that thinks deferent doesn't
understand dry areas at all.

The goat is probably the most versatile of all ruminates.
--
Gordon

Gordon Couger
Stillwater, OK
www.couger.com/gcouger