One of the artifacts of chemical agriculture is cheap grain. Historically grain has been an expensive and precious resource. Ancient literature including the Bible talked about the relative value of grain and it was very expensive. It is only recently in the 20th and 21st century that inexpensive petroleum based fertilizer, high yield hybrids and exceptional mechanization has allowed grain to be grown and harvested with extreme efficiencies. Today grain is a high energy and inexpensive feedstock used pervasively in agriculture. Corn is king, due to the higher solar and fertilizer conversion efficiency, and is used in modern animal husbandry in ways never dreamed of only 100 years ago. My father was very proud of his small herd of Iowa Corn Fed Beef. Those last 90 days before his steers and heifers went to market, they were on 100% corn and a little hay to keep the rumen going. Love it they did, but we fed that prime beef until they were morbidly obese. We didn't have some of the issues with feedlot runoff and ground water contamination that large lots have as we worked real hard to re-cycle nutrients.
So why did my father feed his steers this way?
