I'm not telling you to go and eat rocks, I'm asking you to try some steak
This is a timeless debate, and both sides have their arguments, each of which has it's flaws. For instance the space argument can be widened out into animal cruelty. Fish would be the highest density living protein humans manufacture, because we believe them to be 'lesser animals' with primitive brains and don't mind stacking them into fish farms. Everyone has seen or heard of the horrors inside commercial feed lots for cattle and chickens where animals spend their entire lives touching others of the same species. Space is always a premium especially when you need it close to large urban centers to keep down shipping costs. The ranch that I lived on as a boy had only free range cattle and chickens, which I firmly believe to be the only way an animal should be raised.
I've yet to see any free range rancher 'destroying acres and acres of land'
Perhaps you should direct this to the forestry industry. Farmers (who grow grains and grasses) need to have cleared fields over which to run their tractors. Ranchers (who raise animals) are more than happy having their animals in forested areas. Almost all free range ranchers will put their animals out to pasture, which is often forested, mountainous or bogged land. If the farmer has payed the government the money to lease these lands, why does it bother you?