https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/25/business/drought-farmers-cows/index.html
With smaller herds and fewer breeding cows, the next two years could spell higher beef prices for consumers. The US Department of Agriculture, or USDA, is projecting a 7% decline in beef production next year.
The only reason beef is even affordable is because of how much the government subsidizes meat production. If meat goes up to the price it should be, there would probably be a lot more vegetarians and people who only eat meat on special occasions.
Another factor, the people raising cows don't usually get to set the prices that their cows sell for. Really big operations typically sell cows by contract based on previous years sale prices and smaller operations will take their herd to the sale barns where buyers will place bids. So while the costs to the people raising the cows increase the buyers are trying to buy as cheaply as possible (even if it hurts next years supply of cows). So prices are forced lower and lower as the seller (who can't shop around for a better deal because every day you keep a cow, you've gotta pay for it one way or the other) has to take pretty much whatever price they are offered even when its at a loss.
Wow what a great and efficient system for distributing resources across society
No, there would be a lot more angry suburban people supporting a fascist takeover. When we get squeezed, we move further right as a country. All these boomers complaining about prices at grocery stores aren’t going to put up with things much longer, they will demand a strongman takes power.
Excited for a future in which we have ranchers and almond farms warring over California water rights.
My children will die so that my grandchildren can learn about this shit in the history books.
What grandchildren, what history books? The grandchildren will be killing each other for a meal at the rate the planet is warming up. If the climate models predicting 4 degrees of warming by 2075-2100 are to be believed, every continent will be desert. A thin livable green strip in Canada, Scandinavia, Siberia, and Northern Europe.
What grandchildren, what history books?
:china:
If anyone is equipped to deal with the looming crisises of the 21st century, it is the Chinese.
Some of my vegan friends: "finally the world will switch to vegan".
Me, a depressed communist: "rich people with happily pay more for beef and let the poor starve"
it's almost like individual consumer behavior is impotent against capitalism
Unrelated, but :im-vegan:. I still think it's worthwhile. I just don't think that economics will force the world to go vegan.
Everyone else on the block has kicked a baby. Why can't you just accept that not kicking a baby will have very little impact on the baby kicking marketplace?
Yeah, but one is moralising and the other is material analysis.
Like, if your response to worsening conditions is "now is the time to get people to live the lifestyle I think they should" them you're not actually doing anything besides promoting your consumer identity.
You're literally saying "have you considered just adapting to the worsening conditions of life under capitalism".
I'm seeing "your response", and "you're literally saying", where quite frankly I was doing the exact opposite. Unless you're referring to my lib friends.
Yes, sorry. It was meant in response to that argument, not you directly.
Fair enough, sorry. I guess I'm expecting people to attack me the vegan.
Rich people will continue having beef but fewer cows is still fewer cows.
Rich people will buy the beef and the middle class will have a mental breakdown, ushering in the fascist coup.
It's never bad to start adding more plant based options into your meal rotation. You may be surprised that you still like what you're eating
I’ve been trying to learn more simple Asian-style meals because there are so many good non-meat options.
Tofu sucks as a meat substitute because it’s nothing like meat, but made right it’s fucking delicious.
I agree. Getting away from the idea that you can still sort of eat "meat" with substitutes will make going vegan (based) or severely limiting your animal intake (cringe) much easier. It can also just change how you think about putting together meals, like you mentioned with the Asian-style meals. The way a lot of people see meat as this center piece of every meal is pretty limiting
The way a lot of people see meat as this center piece of every meal is pretty limiting
That’s the biggest thing I’m trying to get away from, because that’s pretty much how I was raised to think about it. With the exception of some pastas (which usually still include cheese) basically every meal I’d eat has meat as the core.
Tofu sucks as a meat substitute because it’s nothing like meat
Tofu is delicious when you fry it and not bad at all when you saute it. Just learn to love curry and you'll love Tofu.
Oh I love tofu, it’s just very different from meat so if you go in expecting meat you’ll be disappointed
Instead of spending money on a solution, the beef industry will just up their PR game and try to shit on the meatless competition. I had a beyond burger on 4th of July. The taste was off but it had the exact texture of a burger. And with inflation, they're getting more affordable in relation to beef. If they can get the taste right and beef keeps going up, then it'll be an easy choice for consoomers.
I haven't figured out how to cook it yet and if you get that wrong the texture is abysmal, but I found the flavor easy to get pretty similar.
The impossible stuff works pretty well for making your own patties. I don't buy the premade patties.
Just use a decent amount of oil in the pan and don't play with it until the outside is strong enough to hold the patty together.
I have been substituting it into other dishes but the timing isn't the same and cooking 'til it browns is not right.
I did it on lump charcoal. I wasn't sure how to test if it's done, so I let it go for probably too long. The outside started to get a golden color, and was close to burning, or, at least, what I guess would be burning. To do a true test I also did lean beef, well done. The texture of both was exactly the same. But the beyond burger tasted like a weird meat I've never had before. It wasn't nasty. If I didn't know it was plant-based I would have guessed some exotic meat.
Impossible burgers have a better flavor imo. Beyond used to smell/taste like wet cat food until they altered the formula.
Instead of spending money on a solution, the beef industry will just up their PR game and try to shit on the meatless competition.
Telling everyone who doesn't eat your product that they're cucked losers only works when you've got a large market share.
Destroying your public image to Own The Libs is just a grift. It doesn't grow your business. Its what you do when you're already in a contraction spiral.
"Sell their cows to who, Ben?"
Seriously though, if they're becoming unsustainable due to drought then who's buying them? The article doesn't say but my guess would be some Blackrock-like company that owns enough land to move cattle to wherever there isn't a drought and then benefit massively from increased prices.
Its a slow decline, so with a non drought year, every acre of field can support "X" cows for "X" days. As the rain fall patters change, specifically during the hottest part of the year, it means that the same acre of field can only support "Y" cows for "X" days. So either you keep the same number of cows but buy more land to rotate your cows to or start scaling back your herd so that the same amount of acreage can support the reduced number of cows until its time to take them to the sale barn. Now year on year droughts, and longer and longer periods of zero rain during the hottest parts of the year could mean that the acreage will support fewer and fewer cows.
This should make it more financially sustainable for the rancher/farmer but they don't typically get to set their prices so all the price increases that the consumer will see are just increased revenue for all the middle men that are involved after the cows have been sold.
Fuck I miss Field Roast stuff (too poor to afford it on the regular these days).
:sicko-yes: you will embrace plant based agriculture :hail-seitan:
I will take one cow, sir. Actually make that a double. I want it to have a friend of its own kind. They can live in the yard and drink and graze merrily.
USA farmers about to go through what Australian farmers did without the government coming in to save them
not exactly. there's a "beef checkoff" program whereby a private association of processors charges a "tax" on processing to finance the Beef Council, when lobbies the government on behalf of food processors to induce demand for beef products. "beef: it's what's for dinner" is one of the more broadly known campaigns to the public, but obviously there are behinds the scenes projects for institutional purchases.
there's a direct payment subsidy system for corn/soy production to keep these feed materials available cheaply and there are various support systems for water source development, equipment purchasing, and sort of piecemeal inducements to promote conservation practices. out west, where the feds still own a lot of land via the Bureau of Land Management, grazing leases can be had for very cheap, which is certainly a subsidy.
generally speaking though, in the post Nixon era, US ag policy has been about flooding domestic and international markets with very cheap raw agricultural products via production subsidies, which is essentially a corporate giveaway to those further down the supply chain, like multinational food processors.
so like, collapsing commodity prices due to overproduction is sort of the goal of the system, with collapse of rural livelihood being kind of a "bonus".
