I'm a utilitarian so if you can make a convincing case for a scenario having less suffering/death for animals and humans and/or more happiness/pleasure then I will prefer it.

I make the basic case here. (Or at least explain the ideas behind the case that has been made more substantively elsewhere).

If that is the case, why are we still destroying environments to produce grazing land/animal feed?

Because political distortions to the global marketplace wreak havoc on the efficient allocation of scarce resources. Subsidies for some crops and not others, general economic/monetary policy, land usage regulations, trade controls, tariffs, etc, all happen in discord and often lead economic actors to do silly, myopic things like clear rainforest to make way for a cattle ranch, when without these distortions, cattle production operations would naturally tend toward occupying the most resource-efficient locations, regardless of borders--like somewhere there's not already a dense forest in the way.

Okay, so you're proposing to confine cattle to barns and harvest grass which you then feed to them in the barn? If so, any concerns about animals killed during harvesting or whatever must necessarily apply to this case as well as the death/suffering of the cattle themselves. If you're actually growing/harvesting grass, it seems like you could probably harvest some other crop on that land which would be more efficient to eat directly.

Not really proposing as much as referencing what is already done anywhere pastured animals are raised with cold winters. Grasses (or any other natural perennial that animals might graze) don't need to be "grown" for pastured animals, they grow naturally in any open space with sufficient soil present. It can be harvested for winter hay towards the end of the season when it is already dead and most animal/insect life has already vacated. It doesn't need to be fertilized, sprayed, or watered, and it only needs to be cut and rolled for harvest as opposed to food crops that must be harvested with specific equipment to preserve the edible portions of the plant. As for the cold of winter, all animals experience this, including animals in confined feeding operations. It seems kind of silly to compare the suffering of a cow that lives knee-deep in its own crap, in a stall where it can barely move, eating a diet of foods that make it sick, bloated and in need of constant medication to live, with a cow that gets to run around in a grassy field with its family for 3/4 of the year eating food that keeps it healthy, on the basis that the second cow has to live longer and by extension has to sit through a greater number of cold winters in its lifetime.

Increased productivity (slaughter weight and growth rate) in the CON system reduced the cattle population size required to produce 1.0 × 109 kg of beef compared to the NAT or GFD system.

Thank you for the study, I'll take a look at it.

I think a lot of people have this impression, but it's really not true. Yes, stuff like faux meats or cheeses are pretty expensive, prepared vegetarian/vegan meals are expensive but there are a lot of vegan/vegetarian meals that can be prepared quickly and easily from extremely cheap ingredients. I can provide examples if you want.

I'm not talking about vegan convenience foods and faux meats. I'm talking about poor families in Africa who have no access to running water, electricity, or refrigeration, for whom cattle represent a source of hydration and supplemental nutrition through dairy, as well as a form of self-preserving stored food that they can turn to in the event of crop failures or economic downturn that means they can't afford to buy grain. I'm talking about much of Asia still living in an agrarian culture without the convenience and diversity of supermarkets, who will suffer grave nutritional deficiencies if they don't incorporate the locally available animal foods with their staple rice and legumes. For the majority of the world's population, vegetarianism or veganism isn't even a question that's present in their world--it's an option that arises largely within the context of the privileged lifestyles of westerners.

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