Beef: Extraction

Why a feedlot steer eats so much grain

Beef starts with breeding herds on grassland, from US ranges to Brazil's cerrado and the Argentine Pampas. Calves are weaned, grazed, then often finished in feedlots where grain speeds weight gain. Morgan puts the cost at about seven pounds of grain per pound of beef gain, against two to three for chickens and hogs (pdf p. 148). Packers slaughter the animals and ship chilled cuts in boxes (pdf p. 247). Hides, tallow and offal are valuable by-products. Grass-fed systems use more land but less grain.

Beef comes from three broad systems. Grain-finished feedlot systems, mainly in the US, fatten cattle quickly to heavy, marbled carcasses. Pasture-based systems in Brazil, Argentina, Australia and Uruguay raise cattle on grass, often with lighter carcasses and lower feed costs. Mixed smallholder systems across Asia and Africa keep cattle and buffalo mainly for milk and draught, and slaughter them at the end of working life; India's buffalo meat comes from this route. Packing plants then turn animals into boxed cuts and co-products. Beef is the slowest meat to expand, because a cow produces one calf a year and that calf takes about two years to reach slaughter.

Methods compared

How each method works

Calves graze on ranches, then spend several months in feedlots on maize-based rations before slaughter. Feedlots buy feeder cattle and sell fed cattle to packers, hedging on CME futures.

Fast, uniform, high-quality beef, but heavy grain and water use and exposure to maize prices.

Cattle graze year-round on tropical or temperate pasture, sometimes with a short grain-finishing period. Zebu breeds dominate in Brazil. Low feed costs make these countries the main exporters.

Low cost and large export surpluses, but more land per kilo, deforestation scrutiny (EU rules from 30 December 2026) and drought risk.

Farmers keep buffalo and cattle mainly for milk. Unproductive male and spent buffalo are sold to licensed abattoirs, which produce deboned frozen buffalo meat (carabeef) for export. Cow slaughter is banned in most Indian states, so India's bovine meat is buffalo.

Very low-cost meat because animals are a by-product of dairying, but export access depends on disease status (foot-and-mouth) and halal and sanitary approvals.

Plants stun, slaughter and dress animals, chill carcasses and break them into boxed cuts and trim. Large exporters run integrated plants with rendering and hide processing on site.

Economies of scale have concentrated packing in a few firms in each exporting country.

Who does it: global

Who does it: India

India produced 4.57 Mt of buffalo meat in 2024 (FAOSTAT). Buffalo meat exports reached $5.1 billion in FY2026, up 25.6%, at an average $3,591/t (roughly 1.4 Mt by calculation); Vietnam, Malaysia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE each take over $100 million (Ministry of Commerce/APEDA via Dairy News Today). On Comtrade's frozen bovine meat code India ranked fourth by value in 2024 (9.7%, about $3.5 billion). Exports are buffalo meat, since cow slaughter is banned in most states.