Summary – Impact of Technology on U.S. Beef Production

The most significant impact of technology on U.S. beef production has been to increase grain-fed beef production and indirectly decrease non-fed beef production. Our ability to feed cattle high-grain diets, which has been the result of a synergistic combination of a number of technologies, has been the most significant source of increased beef industry productivity, efficiency and product quality over the past 50 years. Our feedlot technology is what differentiates U.S. beef from that of the rest of the world. Based on beef production per head of cattle, the U.S. is the most efficient producer of beef in the world.

Compared to beef from pasture cattle, feedlot beef is generally regarded as superior in tenderness, taste and consistency. Thus a direct effect of progress in technology has been to increase the quality and consistency of the U.S. beef supply. In fact, as shown in Figure 15, all of the beef supply increase since 1955 has come from grain-fed cattle (about 7.5 billion pounds in 1955 to an estimated 22.9 billion pounds in 2005) while the total beef produced from cattle not fed grain has actually declined (from about 5.7 billion pounds to an estimated 3.6 billion pounds in 2005).

Figure 15

Estimated U.S. Beef Production from Fed and Non-Fed Cattle

The effect on the composition of the per capita beef supply has been just as dramatic. Since 1955, per capita beef production from non-grain-fed cattle has decreased by 65 percent while per capita feedlot beef production has increased by 71 percent (Figure 16). It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these changes. The increased supply of feedlot beef has revolutionized the consumer beef-eating experience in terms of both quality and consistency, while at the same time we have also significantly improved overall production efficiency.

Figure 16⁷²

U.S. Beef Production Per Person — Estimates of Fed and Non-Fed

⁷²These estimates are different from earlier beef consumption estimates. Beef trade is included in consumption but not in these estimated per capita production numbers. Beef trade in 1955 was much smaller than today. We currently export mostly beef from fed cattle and import beef from non-fed cattle, so the differences in consumption vs. 1955 are not quite as extreme as the differences in production.