4 MISC. PUBLICATION 7 02, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



were for livestock and livestock products. Consumption of citrus 

 fruits, leafy green and yellow vegetables, and livestock and its products 

 has advanced more rapidly than has that of other foodstuffs since 

 1935-39 ; Dietary habits formed during a period of high purchasing 

 power are not easily cast aside under less prosperous conditions ; and 

 should consumers' purchasing power be maintained, dietary habits 

 may well make additional gains which will involve an even greater 

 proportion of our national food supply in the form of livestock and 

 livestock products. 



It has been estimated that if per capita consumption were to be 

 increased 8 percent above 1946 rates and if the national food supply 

 were in a form which would satisfy dietary needs, and desires, our 

 1955 population would require 10 percent more dairy products, 18 

 percent more meat, poultry and fish, 9 percent more fats and oils, 

 including butter, bacon and fat cuts, and 29 percent less grain products 

 than the record quantities produced for food (4, tables 1^ 18). 2 



Meat and milk, however, are end products of the farm assembly line. 

 They depend in turn upon production of forages, commercial byprod- 

 ucts, and feed grains which are utilized through livestock. And, as 

 shown in table 1, this feed base for livestock employs a surprisingly 

 large proportion of the land that is devoted to agricultural uses in 

 the United States. 



Of our nearly 2 billion acres (1.9 billion) of land area, about two- 

 thirds contribute in greater or lesser degree to livestock production. 

 Roughly a third of this land is outside of farm boundaries; it fur- 

 nishes grazing on public or private forested areas and on our public 

 domain. The remaining two-thirds within farms is again largely 

 made up of grazing lands of varying degrees of productivity. In 1944, 

 for instance, of 845 million acres of farm land that contributed directly 

 to livestock production, 576 million were woodland pasture, nonplow- 

 able pasture, or plowable pasture in addition to rotation pasture. The 

 remaining 269 million acres represented a part of the cropland base, 

 about 60 percent of all cropland in 1944. The cropland acreage is 

 more productive. It includes 161 million acres of feed-grain crops, 

 corn, sorghums, oats, and barley ; 60 million acres of all kinds of hay 

 crops ; and 48 million acres of cropland used onlv for pasture. 



In addition to these direct sources of livestock feed we must not 

 forget the important direct contributions that result from production 

 of a number of our cash crops. Cottonseed, flaxseed and soybean meals, 

 beet tops and pulp, and even the gleanings from crop aftermath are 

 examples. 



But what of. the relative importance of these sources of livestock 

 feed and in particular of the roughages with which the study was 

 especially concerned? Table 2 indicates that during the period 1942- 

 46 roughage supplied almost 55 percent of all livestock feed, whereas 

 concentrates, in one form or another, supplied the remaining 45 

 percent. 



The feed grains — corn, oats, barley, and sorghum grains — and wheat 

 and rye fed contributed 36 percent of the total feed units fed to live- 

 stock during the period 1942-46. Corn, by far the most important 

 of the feed grains, furnished about two-thirds of these feed units and 

 this excludes the corn fed in silage. Oats supplied about half of the 



2 Italic numbers in parentheses refer to literature cited, pp. 88-90. 



