Feedlots are yet another example of avaricious cruelty, resource waste (water, crops) and excessive pollution. Australia produces, consumes and exports a ludicrously excessive amount of meat & dairy and that is one of the major reasons for our high per capita ghg emissions, diminishing water supplies (MDB), land degradation, high rate of heart disease, colorectal cancer, obesity and diabetes. Think about and research it for yourself (UNFAO, ACF, IPCC, CSIRO Land & Water, CSIRO Perfidy).

While the beef feedlot industry will continue to meet demand for its product, there is no denying that consumers need to be educated or forced by legislation or price to drastically cut their appetite for feedlot beef. Apart from the animal welfare and GHG implications, it is hugely immoral to take a pile of grain that would feed a poor family for a year, process it through a cow and use that cow to feed a rich family for only a couple of months. We raise Angus cattle on grass and maybe some of our yearlings end up in a feedlot but we never eat feedlot beef and if that industry dies off we'll sleep easy even though our returns might be less. Farmers should welcome ethical and environmentally sustainable outcomes and as consumers and educators, play a globally responsible role.

Value adding is what I see harmless. We also export large amounts of all types of grain and fibres. Taking low value grains over produced and heading towards below cost of production is a win-win. Most feedlots in WA capture and use their own water better then it running down a salt creek. Don't blame beef producers for the fatties - modern lazy lifestyles are a problem. Cattle in the M.D.B. are not big water users. Try rice and cotton and all those M.I.S. Given our rice feeds 40 ooo ooo people it's bit too much for us. What ever you do, drink beer. It uses less water than plonk .

The price taker, of course, is the yearling producer and grain grower. The feedlots are buying ... but the suppliers are selling below production and selling costs.

Why is the price of yearling at the farm gate less than than that of 10 years ago? Wake up, MLA, forget the glossy brochures and DVD productions....we need a proper return for producers of yearlings and vealers...and for prime grassfed meat.

But then who produces and receives the renumeration for the so-called 'low cost grain'? Is this a fine example of how to destroy a farmimg industry? Ban the feedlots and then beef prices will resume the relativity they had before big feedlots became fashionable...and the 1/3 of the world who are starving may have some grain to eat. Over-production of grain...that really makes economic sense!

Re: The Farmer. Sure we need to reassess the amount of cotton and rice grown using irrigation water, but dairy and livestock are still the No1 users of water in the MDBC.

And the amount of water used to produce a kilo of beef, sheep and dairy products is the highest of all our food commodities (CSIRO Land & Water).

Advocating the urgent need to significantly reduce production and consumption of these highest resource-use products is based on scientific fact, and it is essential for future sustainability and health of our country and the planet.

You may also want to have a squiz at this disturbing USA report on feedlots: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/food-safety/animal-f eed-and-food/animal-feed-and-the-food-supply-105/overview/

Harmless the old chestnut about water used to produce beef or mutton or wool is a real Clayton's stat. Given most of our beef is grown in rather harsh enviroments like the Kimberley, the NT or F.N.Q., I am sure a Kimberley bore is not detracting from your lifestyle. You maybe right about dairy though but I prefer cows to have nice pastures than tourists to have plush fairways.

Yes, THE FARMER, how much water does it take to produce a bottle of cheap plonk? We travelled the Murray last year, spent a few days around Adelaide first then drove from the Mouth to the Darling and on to Wilcannia.

Very dry all along the trip, but what has stuck in my mind is the mile after mile after boring mile of vineyards, stretching to the horizon, some growing in quite light looking soil and all set up for irrigation. We didn't see much else in the way of crops either. In the vineyards close to Adelaide we were told that some vines only produce a bottle or so. Harmless shows the shrinkage of the brain known to occur in non-meat eaters. The water that our beef cattle drink is never likely to put even a ripple in the MDB, or in Harmless's bathtub.

PS. Grazier, you obviously don't understand that it is not just the water that cattle drink (with dairy cows requiring significantly more than beef), but also the water to grow their feed, the water used for cleaning in dairy production, and the water used in the whole slaughter and meat processing system. Grain fed and feedlot cattle obviously require significantly more water than cattle raised on natural pastures requiring no irrigation. Problem is that it is totally unsustainable and impossible to rely on natural non-irrigated pasture to produce the excessively high volumes we currently do (for export and domestic consumption).