Argentina: Feedlot Beef and Booming Grain Production

The push for cheap meat continues to expand globally. Once loved for its superior grass-fed flavor, Argentinian beef is now mass produced. Let’s hope growing awareness and demand for better beef flips this practice back!

“But while in Buenos Aires last week, I discovered that the pampas-raised beef of my reveries is practically a thing of the past. Today, most cattle in Argentina are raised in feedlots, just like in the U.S. That transition has been driven by soaring prices in the global grain markets over the past decade, making it far more profitable to raise soybeans, wheat and corn than herd cattle.

That may be good news for grain farmers, but it’s not a welcome change for the chefs of Buenos Aires. “It’s politics, not gastronomy,” says Javier Urondo, chef and owner of Urondo Bar and Restaurant in the Parque Chacubuco neighborhood.

Urondo would much rather buy grass-fed beef, but says it’s impossible because the industry doesn’t identify meat by production method. “There’s no way of knowing,” the affable 54-year-old told me over a late lunch at Bar Seis in the Palermo Soho neighborhood. “Even my butcher doesn’t know.”