Originally Posted by HardyWeinberg
It's possibly just semantics that 'ranchers' wouldn't have as much of a feed problem as 'farmers' would. Cows turned loose to pasture/forage don't require the feed budget that (industrial) dairy cattle who are never out on their own do. I was amazed when I moved from NY (the rural part) to WA in 1994 that beef was about half the price in the PNW, 'cause they just don't have to feed the cows as much (yadda yadda grazing on federal lands yadda yadda subsidies yadda yadda).
The guys they talked to were putting hay out in the snow covered pastures for winter feed. It was Missouri or Montana I think.. a Northern state. When I was young I lived in a dairy farming area in the north and the farmers needed to grow hay for the winter even though the cows went out in the fields every day. One neighbor had no cattle but just grew hay to sell to the dairy farmers. I think the guys who were being interviewed couldn't grow enough hay this year because of the weather. The comments to the post have been interesting, I'm surprised it has had an effect on the food supply so quickly. In spite of our fat epidemic if it is true that the small percentage increase in ethanol fuel use has already affected the food supply then our nutrition supply system must be unstable.