Why is it cheaper for a farmer to produce a pound of grain than a pound of meat?

Answer 1

Basically, it takes a lot less land, a lot less time, and a lot less resources or inputs to get a pound of grain versus getting a pound of meat.

But here's the problem: meat comes from animals that need to eat plants in order to be "harvested" for their meat. Grain comes from plants (domesticated grasses) which are at the very bottom of the food chain and are eaten by animals. So quite frankly, the comparison is really an apples to lettuce comparison. It would probably be more fair to see whether it's cheaper to produce a pound of chicken versus a pound of beef than a pound of grain versus a pound of ambiguous meat.

Meat comes from any animal, from a deer to a chicken, thus can be produced in different ways. It doesn't always mean or have to be with grain; many animals can be raised for meat without using grain. And animals can be raised without costing the environment significant damage like is done with producing crops.

Crops need to be produced on land that is tilled, or soil exposed to erosion and heating, which makes for less land for wildlife to live from. This is an environmental cost that has not yet been assigned a dollar value. To add to this, there is also an environmental cost with producing these grains by use of fertilizer, fuel, and pesticides because they add to pollution to the air and harm soil microbes.

Arguably, with raising livestock on grain there is also an added environmental cost, especially those that are raised intensively or finished on high-concentrate diets like with cattle. While many animals, especially in North America, are raised this way, a number of livestock herds are not. Instead, they take advantage of the perennial nature of plants to regrow after grazing or after every spring to use as forage for the animals to harvest themselves. A lot less inputs, except electric fence and some time by the farmer, is needed to allow this to happen.

No doubt production costs (based only on economic data) for growing grains (which is around $300 to $500/acre) is still cheaper than even raising grass-finished (~$1557/head according to U of C Berkley) or grain-finished ($1,250/head according to Manitoba Agriculture of Manitoba, Canada), but if environmental costs were accosted to grain production and grain-finishing, both would be more expensive to produce than grass-finished beef.

Answer 2

A pound of meat requires the animal to be fed several pound (5-7) of grain. So the farmer must produce (or buy) that grain plus there are the costs of looking after the animal.