GEOG 1125 Ch 8.3: Raising Livestock
About 75% of corn produced in the U.S. is used as animal feed. Approximately how much of that goes to feed cattle?
1/2
Which of the following would require the least amount of water to produce?
6 oz of chicken
Overconsumption of meat contributes to health and environmental issues. Which of these is NOT one of those concerns?
a balanced part of a healthy diet
In developing countries, where low-income families face food insecurity and poverty, which would be the best diet?
a moderate amount of animal protein and plant-based foods
Which animal protein source requires the most water and land?
beef
Which of the following statements is TRUE of raising livestock?
Rearing animals on pastures has a lower ecological footprint but cannot produce the volume of animals that CAFOs can produce.
Livestock is responsible for around 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions annually. The majority of it comes from
cattle.
What animal have the Millers recently introduced to the Lick Skillet?
pigs
Food insecurity is most often linked to
poverty.
The U.S. Farm Bill was originally created to
provide a safety net for farmers by keeping prices stable through the creation of scarcity.
As personal income increases and the percent of the nation's income from raising livestock decreases, priorities should shift to
improving food safety.
In low-development nations with small farmers, what factor is the highest priority?
food security
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that as red meat consumption _____, a person's risk of dying _____.
increases; increases
What would NOT be an ecological benefit of raising cattle on pastures?
increasing use of fertilizers
The priority of a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) is to
get as many animals as fat as possible in as little time as possible.
Life-cycle assessments reveal much of the carbon footprint for livestock comes from:
growing crops to feed them.
In CAFOs, animals are confined at _____ densities in _____ spaces than in traditional farms.
high, smaller
The feed-conversion ratio is
the amount of edible food produced per unit of feed input.
Which type of diet evaluated by Christian Peters provides the least amount of fat daily?
vegan
When would the inclusion of meat actually increase the food available to a community?
when animals are raised on land that would not support a food crop
How much of all cropland in the U.S. is used to grow food for livestock?
40%
Why is eating a rare, ground beef hamburger more likely to expose us to bacterial contamination than eating a rare steak?
Contamination is on the surface of meat. In a steak, this is killed when it hits the hot pan or grill, but when ground, the bacteria makes it to the center of the hamburger where it might not get hot enough to kill it.
Cows are not adapted to eating grain and switching their diet quickly can make them very sick. Why are they given this type of feed in CAFOs?
Grains help them gain weight faster.
How can eating less meat increase the food supply of a population?
Grains normally fed to livestock can be fed to people, which will feed more people than if they ate the animals that ate the grain.
What happens to the waste produced in a CAFO?
It is stored in lagoons for microbial digestion.
How does the U.S. Farm Bill influence the way meat animals are raised in the United States?
Its provisions favor large factory operations such as CAFOs for raising animals.
How does the consumption of meat change as one becomes more affluent?
Meat consumption rises as income rises, up to a point. Consumption eventually levels off or even begins to fall slightly at very high income levels.
What would be the outcome if U.S. agricultural policy changes and we move toward more pasture-raised livestock?
Meat would be more expensive.
Why do CAFO cows put on weight faster than pasture-raised cattle?
They do not move around much, so they do not burn as many calories.
Which of these is an advantage of rearing cattle on pasture instead of in a CAFO?
Their meat may have a healthier profile of fats, which means less saturated fat and more omega-3 fatty acids.
Which of the following requires the most water to produce a serving of 50 grams of protein?
almonds
Based on feed-conversion ratios, it is more energy efficient to eat chicken than beef because
chickens are more efficient than cows at converting the food they are fed into body mass, which is the food that we eat.
The choice to reduce our meat and dairy consumption in favor of more plant based foods is called
eating lower on the food chain.
The advantages of CAFOs mainly support which aspect of the triple bottom line?
economic
Affluent people generally have better access to two key food sources
meat and dairy.
