Mặc dù một doanh nghiệp có nguy cơ cao, Hoa Kỳ là nhà sản xuất thịt bò hàng đầu thế giới. Hầu như 30 tỷ pound thịt bò được sản xuất tại Hoa Kỳ vào năm 2000, và tiêu thụ bình quân đầu người đạt £ 78 ngành công nghiệp thịt bò có nguy cơ cao vì chu kỳ gia súc là nguy hiểm, và hiện nay chu kỳ là trong một giai đoạn suy giảm. Trong một số năm, một hoạt động không có quyền thu hồi túi của chi phí. trong kỳ hạn gần, trong vài năm nữa dự kiến của cây. | 8 Beef Cattle Feeding Operations It s an industry I no longer want to get tangled up in even at the level of the ninety-nine-cent exchange. Each and every quarter pound of hamburger is handed across the counter after the following production costs which I ve searched out precisely 100 gallons of water pounds of grain a cup of gasoline greenhouse-gas emissions equivalent to those produced by a six-mile drive in your average car and the loss of pounds of topsoil every inch of which took 500 years for the microbes and earthworms to build. How can all this cost less than a dollar and who is supposed to pay for the rest of it If I were a cow right here is where I d go mad. Kingsolver 2002 p. 120 INTRODUCTION Although a high-risk enterprise the United States is the leading beef producer in the world. Almost 30 billion pounds of beef were produced in the United States in 2000 and per capita consumption totaled 78 lb. The beef industry is high risk because the cattle cycle is risky and currently the cycle is in a declining phase. During some years an operation may not recover out-of-pocket costs. In the near term several more years are expected of smaller calf crops a slight decline in cattle feeding small decline in slaughter rates and stable consumption rates. Profitability in the cattle business usually increases as production declines PSU 2005 . Interesting point Traditional feeder-cattle enterprises grow weaned calves 450 to 600 lb and yearling steers or heifers 550 to 800 lb to slaughter weights of 1 100 to 1 400 lb. This chapter discusses beef cattle feeding confinement and manure handling operations. This livestock sector includes adult beef cattle heifers and steers and calves. Beef cattle may be kept on open pastures or confined to feedlots. In this chapter we discuss feedlot operations only. SIZE AND LOCATION OF INDUSTRY In 1997 106 075 beef open feedlots were in operation in the United States excluding farms where animals graze USDA 1999a . .
