Pjflg 30—Corn Talk, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 14, 1995 Uses Of Grains, Other Resources For Beef Production UNIVERSITY PARK (Centre Co.) —Livestock, beef cattle paiticulaily, are often accused of using grains and other resources that should be directly consumed by the human population. Following are some points to consider in determining the efficiency of using these resources through the U. S. beef cattle industry. • Raising beef is an efficient use of our natural resources. Only through ruminant (four stomach), grazing animals can Facts From NCGA’s ‘The World Of Corn 1995’ State Com Production 1994 Million Bushels 1,000 Bushels lowa*’ Illinois*’ Nebraska*’.. Minnesota*’. Indiana’ Ohio*’ Wisconsin*’ South Dakota*’, Kansas*’ Missouri*’ Michigan*’ Texas*’ Kentucky** Colorado*’ Source USDA/National Agricultural Statistics Service • denotes states with com checkoff ‘ denotes NCCA member state we harvest food from most ot the more than 800 million acres of range and pasture land in the U. S. At least 85 percent of these lands are too high, too rough, too dry, or too wet to grow cultivated crops. The availability of grazing cattle more than doubles the U. S. land area that can be used to produce plants for food puiposes. • Approximately 85 percent of the nutrients consumed by cattle come from non-grain sources—feedstuffs not edible , 1,930,400 Pennsylvania’ ,1,786,200 North Carolina*’ ,1,153,700 New York’ ~..915,900 Tennessee’ ....858,240 Georgia’ ....486,500 North Dakota*’.. ....437,100 Maryland*’ ....367,200 Louisiana* ....304,590 Virginia*’ ....273,700 Mississippi’ ....260,910 South Carolina’... ....238,680 California ....156,160 Alabama* ....133,500 Washington by humans. These feedstuffs include grass, roughage, food processing by-products and crop residue. The grain that cattle do eat is produced speci fically to meet this need and would not be grown if the demand did not exist. • Less than half of the dry matter produced by grain crops is edible by humans. Millions of tons of nutrients would be wasted to say nothing of waste disposal problems—if it were not for the fact that lives .123,600 Delaware. .81,900 Oklahoma .68,440 New Mexico .66,120 Arkansas .57,240 New Jersey .54,000 Florida .46,020 Wyoming .35,190 Idaho .34,300 West Virginia .30,500 Oregon, .29,325 Utah .28,050 Montana .24,960 Arizona .19,425 TOTAL.. tock can make use of food pro cessing by-products and crop residues like com stalks. • If grain were not fed to livestock, more grain would not necessarily be available to feed the hungry. The U. S. continues to produce more grain than can readily be sold. For most of the last three decades, U.S. grain surpluses have increased, even with an expanding animal agri culture. That is why acreage reduction has been part of of the government grain programs. The increase in grain supplies has not helped alleviate world hunger. Relief programs and/or economic and infrastructure development in poor countries, providing the ability to produce or purchase and distribute more food, are needed to help solve hunger problems. • Energy use is not an issue when it comes to cattle produc tion. The beef industry con Call Binkley & Hurst Bros., Your Source For Quality Grain Handling Equipment A premium quality galvanized auger designed tor low maintenance operation. Mayrath introduces the all new ‘lnline Drive” series of portable grain augers. Mayrath has combined operational efficiency with long term dependability providing you with a high quality, GALVANIZED auger at a very affordable price. The revolutionary “Inline Drive” system minimizes the number of moving parts... greatly reducing costly down- m time and maintenance in the future. .2,700 2,550 10,103,030 The unique “InLine Drive” design features an internally mounted gearbox inside of an ex panded, bell shaped tube housing. Auger flighting Is positioned to allow a high volume of unrestricted grain flow anwm* *■-- internal gear utilizes doul intake guan complete cl engineered the intake gi augers capr Ma InLin Drive BDKur>augsx 111 To’Z'sr Rd - m m ‘'i-rtos.roc.-'* “sffrar* JSsSm Fu 717-626-0996 €®3M fM.I MIWO PENNSYLVANIA MASTER CORN GROWERS ASSOC., INC. sumes less than one half of one percent of total U.S. fossil fuel energy use. , • More than 80 percent of the total energy involved in food production, processing, and preparation is used after food leaves the farm. Because many plant-source foods require large amounts of energy in the processing phase, the overall energy efficiency of beef often is comparable, or even super ior, to the energy efficiency of plant-source foods. How we manage our resour ces is vitally important for our nation’s future. The beef indus try nationally and in 30 states (soon to include Pennsylvania) is increasing efficiency of resource use through programs such as Integrated Resource Management (DRM) which also considers improved animal health and well-being and pro duct wholesomeness. / '
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