Thoughts on de-industrializing the “beef industry”

I’m always somewhat bemused by “beef industry” criticism especially when it comes from media sources and organizations receiving a lot of funds from oligarchs heavily invested in alternative proteins.

Why so bemused?

Because beef is the least vertical of all meat & protein production. Most (85%) of beef cattle inventory is on small family owned operations grazing grass NOT in feedlots selling their fat cattle to the big four meat packers. So most beef cattle producers are basically trapped in a rigged system ruled by corporate captured regulatory agencies like the USDA and FDA. These producers are trapped because processing and retail distribution are controlled by those four large meat packers. Even the check-off dollars small producers pay work against them since the NCBA works largely on behalf of these packers that control over 85% of processing capacity.

Rather than incessant propaganda about how beef is the root cause of climate change and all other evils in the world today, the focus should be instead on the various ways to change, address, and improve this broken system for BOTH industrial meat and industrial degenerative crop production (see items listed below). The best way to do this isn’t absolutism. Absolutism only causes division, and division is the best way to maintain the status quo which, in turn, means further corporate control of the food system. Those in power LOVE division, especially oligarchs heavily invested in silver bullet “solutions” controlled by intellectual property [IP]. They want us to fight among ourselves rather than coalesce and bring about real meaningful change.

And no, as I detailed in this blog, How much do cattle contribute to greenhouse gases, per 2014 UNCCC data based on GWP100 and not accounting for soil or tropospheric sinks, gross enteric methane accounts for only 2.17% of entire GHG emissions in the US. Net emissions are significantly less. I swear people who cite global figures probably have never even read those reports (Long Shadow 2006 & 2013) in their entirety (like I have) to understand how global numbers were actually derived and why (to push industrial consolidation).

So rather than be so absolute and unwilling pawns of oligarchs and VC’s wanting to further control food production via intellectual property using concerns about climate change and planetary harm to manipulate behavior and push agendas, we all should instead work together on this following list I mentioned above (not listed in any particular order of importance).

1. Use existing anti-trust laws to break up the large conglomerates including and especially the large meat packers. Strengthen rather than weakened these laws. This is necessary to have free and fair competitive markets.

2. Crop insurance reform where crop insurance is based on improving soil health and thus also drought & flood resilience. Make crop insurance outcome based rather than be so micro-managed. So farms that build soil organic matter from their baseline have cheaper and more accessible insurance than those that further degrade this precious resource. This too will discourage planting corn or soy on every acre, and thus reduce the amount of cheap feed available for CAFO’s. Improving soil health also reduces the need for synthetic and mined NPK’s that compact soils and end up in waterways where N & P cause algae blooms, hypoxia and dead zones.

3. End or severely reduce ethanol production since this too pushes more and more corn production with by-products like DDG being used in feedlots and CAFO’s. Not to mention, the value of ethanol from a GHG reduction perspective is incredibly dubious especially when grown with a lot of CO2 intensive, CH4 derived Synthetic Nitrogen that releases a lot of CH4 and N2O into the atmosphere.

4. Enforce the Clean Water Act so there’s no shifting production costs from large CAFO’s and industrial farms to the general public to clean up all of their pollution.

5. Reinstate Country of Origin Labeling [COOL] without any loopholes. Sure the voluntary labeling I noted in this blog, Truth in advertising therefore no more fraudulent product of USA labels, is a good start, but it doesn’t go far enough. We need to make sure a meat product of the USA is something born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the USA. So this would preclude any beef trimming with nebulous origins including any trimmings from Brazil. Additionally, any beef from Brazil needs to provide the full block chain from where it’s born, raised, finished and slaughtered. Any beef where any of these steps was done on deforested land should be forbidden for resale in the US.

6. Expand small custom processing ability to facilitate direct farmer to consumer resale getting rid of the hurdles and bottlenecks that drive up producer costs and consumer price points.

7. Regulatory agency reform including closing the revolving door between the industries and agencies that regulate these industries. So no more cushy jobs as lobbyists or executives. Plus also revisiting the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, so government agencies and officials don’t receive kickbacks from licensing deals and royalties. We need a USDA, FDA, EPA, etc not captured by agrochemical, coal, large food, meat-packers, pharma, etc corporations. Funding for these agencies also shouldn’t come from the industries these agencies oversee. Attached is a compilation of two short clips by Robert Kennedy Jr. on this subject of corporate capture including of the USDA. You may disagree with him on other things, but what he says in these two clips is SPOT ON.

8. General government reform including campaign finance reform, lobbyist reform, restrictions on Congressional trading, etc.

We need to work together on these things above if we want to enact any real change. Continuously squabbling over who is more virtuous with their dietary patterns is just silly and counter productive. Like I noted above, absolutism only causes division, and division is the best way to maintain the status quo which, in turn, means further corporate control of the food system. Those in power LOVE division, especially oligarchs heavily invested in silver bullet “solutions” controlled by intellectual property [IP]. They want us to fight among ourselves rather than coalesce and bring about real meaningful change.

More broadly, we also need to focus on best practices for all food production whether that’s wheat, almonds, rice, strawberries, beef, pork, avocados, etc. Why? With food, the real distinction is methods of food production, regenerative versus degenerative, not plants versus meats. Some of the best ways to produce food are actually with integrated systems, where on arable land, livestock, crops or specialty crops are grown and raised on the SAME land. This has tremendous benefits, which I’ll discuss in a future blog.

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