Yeah, in the US at least, the normal pattern is to raise cows on pastures, sometimes out in the dry west fantastic acreage of it, 1,000 acre ranches can be considered tiny, 10s of thousands are not uncommon, and&#x2F;or including grazing rights.<p>Then they&#x27;re sent to a feed lot for some period of time to fatten up.<p>Ah, from the article you linked: &quot;<i>However, comparisons of FCR among different species may be of little significance unless the feeds involved are of similar quality and suitability.</i>&quot;<p>So cattle might be more efficient than appears at first glance, since as ruminants they&#x27;re initially fed stuff you can&#x27;t feed other animals (ADDED: including humans), especially &quot;on marginal land where agriculture isn&#x27;t ideal&quot;, or perhaps as part of a crop rotation cycle.  Alfalfa is a 3-for, a rotation cycle that&#x27;s not e.g. corn or soybeans, a nitrogen fixer, and tasty food for cows.<p>And all the above isn&#x27;t the best for our topic at hand, for that alfalfa and such isn&#x27;t stuff we can digest, nor is silage from corn leftovers, so it mostly feedlot cow food we could redirect to humans.