Maggie's Farm

I realize I'm getting in on this too late, but I will give it a shot anyway.
Number 1, the actual cost of the grain makes up maybe 1 percent of most of the foods you eat, so the price the farmer gets, whether it's $2 or $7 is almost irrelevant. A box of corn flakes has a few pennies worth of grain, maybe a quarter. The real expense is in processing, transportation, advertising, etc. This doesn't keep the big food companies from using the price of grain as an excuse to raise their prices, but not once in my life have I seen the price of anything come down when grains are cheap.
Number 2, while some cattle are finished inside the vast majority are finished in open feed lots. Open to the skies, the heavens, the stars. And nobody, and I mean nobody raises calves inside. Grass pastures are the rule and the laws of economics dictate it. There might be a few dairy calves raised for veal that spend their short lives inside but if commercial beef cattle are lucky enough to get the chance to be born inside they are hustled outside within a day regardless of what month it is.
Number 3, your best tasting beef will be corn fed. The whole Angus thing is a marketing ploy. A small percentage of fed beef today is fed primarily corn because it is just too expensive compared to other feedstuffs which use more byproducts and forages. If you find a local meat market that gets their beef from a local feeder that does it the old way, pay a little extra. It is well worth it.

PS, the price of beef has skyrocketed because of transportation and processing costs, but mainly because our cow herd has been maintained by an aging population that is retiring and the younger generation doesn't want to deal with the heavy workload and the ridiculous regulations that seem to sprout and reproduce by the day.