High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching • Hacker News Board

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#41

Post by freedomben » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

graaben wrote: post #28

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true; it is. This year I bought half of a red angus cow straight from the farm. It turns red when it gets cooked. It's a sight to behold. The stuff you buy at the costco has been frozen and unfrozen at least twice before you buy it. That's already a meaningful difference. They clearly treat it with some sort of coloring agent. In the 30 years I have cooked meat, nothing can prepare you for real beef that comes s…

How did you go about finding a farm to buy from? I'm very interested in doing this.

I'm in Eastern Idaho, and you can find small ranchers to buy meat from pretty easily on local Facebook pages. I even met one at the park and just started up a conversation. In the end it wasn't cheaper (It was about the same price as Costco) and I had to buy at least a half cow, but the quality was so good I can't even believe it sometimes.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#42

Post by xd » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

xu3u32 wrote: post #14

voakbasda wrote: post #10

As a small farmer, I can tell you: independent small-scale farming is not profitable in any meaningful manner. Government is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession to Big Ag. The food in stores is pretty much all garbage compared to food raised on small farms. It sickens me to see things go this way, but this is the reality that we have created.

I am someone who usually gets their beef from costco, small middle eastern markets and sometimes when its on sale at the neighborhood grocery store (Publix). Would you mind sharing in what ways what I'm consuming is trash compared to what comes from small farms?

I took on some caged hens (about 6months back now) that were off for slaughter to be turned into dog food. Straight away they took to the patch of land in my garden I gave them and laid eggs .. the eggs they lay are on another level to anything store bought. I can put a pan of water on boil over a stove; crack an egg into it and have a perfect poached egg 2-3mins later. They are creamy and rich as if they have life compared to what now tastes almost rancid in store eggs.

Waking up at sun rise every day to let them out is a pain but more than worth it. That said I wouldn't recommend keeping hens unless you've had exposure to them on some level other than visiting a farm.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#43

Post by freedomben » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:05 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #36

voakbasda wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies repeatedly have shown that micronutrients do not get replenished in monoculture crops, resulting in a measurable decrease in nutrition available in food grown in that soil. So, yes, food was actually better a hundred years ago.

Micronutrients are, by definition, present in micro amounts, so they can be fully replenished artificially with only small additions of material.

Yes but it's difficult to get them in a form that is highly available for digestion/absorption, so most fortified food may have the same things on paper but it doesn't all get absorbed into your body.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#44

Post by HPsquared » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:05 PM UTC

beebmam wrote: post #30

orang2tang wrote: post #3

This is happening to every industry. There is an obvious consolidation and massive wealth transfer still ongoing. Sickening

Easy enough to solve: tax wealth and redistribute it with a UBI.

Have the state pay everyone's wages and (eventually, with wealth tax) own all major industries... this is supposed to reduce consolidation how?

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#45

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #35

lettergram wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been all over the country it’s amazing to me how different Wyoming and say Tennessee are. The people in Tennessee already had to deal with the federal government implementing policies destroying the domestic tobacco industry. Btw this just means foreign farmers reap the profits. The federal government made the input costs to tobacco prohibitively expensive through taxes and regulations. They then converted mos…

Destroying tobacco? Wasn't $2B subsidies over the last decade, enough to keep it going?

[deleted]

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#46

Post by zwieback » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

xd wrote: post #42

xu3u32 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am someone who usually gets their beef from costco, small middle eastern markets and sometimes when its on sale at the neighborhood grocery store (Publix). Would you mind sharing in what ways what I'm consuming is trash compared to what comes from small farms?

I took on some caged hens (about 6months back now) that were off for slaughter to be turned into dog food. Straight away they took to the patch of land in my garden I gave them and laid eggs .. the eggs they lay are on another level to anything store bought. I can put a pan of water on boil over a stove; crack an egg into it and have a perfect poached egg 2-3mins later. They are creamy and rich as if they have life c…

I added a solenoid-operated latch to my chicken coop that opened when the sun came up. I didn't like getting up at 4:30 in the summer. At night I still manually closed it since I had to make sure I didn't lock a skunk or possum in with the chickens.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#47

Post by beebmam » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

HPsquared wrote: post #44

beebmam wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy enough to solve: tax wealth and redistribute it with a UBI.

Have the state pay everyone's wages and (eventually, with wealth tax) own all major industries... this is supposed to reduce consolidation how?

What do you think reduces consolidation? Genuinely curious. I think there are other strategies that will work, but taxation is extremely effective at reducing variance of wealth distribution.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#48

Post by zwieback » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

voakbasda wrote: post #10

As a small farmer, I can tell you: independent small-scale farming is not profitable in any meaningful manner. Government is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession to Big Ag. The food in stores is pretty much all garbage compared to food raised on small farms. It sickens me to see things go this way, but this is the reality that we have created.

Nonsense - you can get everything from trash to exceptional quality food, depending on the store you buy it from. Not disputing your point that small farmers have it hard but on the consumer side there's lots of choice.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#49

Post by Grakel » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

raincom wrote: post #24

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The food in stores is cheap. And that matters to consumers more than whatever alleged quality small-time farmers can produce (was food actually better a hundred years ago? Doubt).

Yes, appearance-wise, food is cheap. Taste-wise, it is bad. Taste any industrially farmed vegetable, you can see the difference.

I don't even buy tomatoes any more, they all taste like wet paper.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#50

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #43

pfdietz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Micronutrients are, by definition, present in micro amounts, so they can be fully replenished artificially with only small additions of material.

Yes but it's difficult to get them in a form that is highly available for digestion/absorption, so most fortified food may have the same things on paper but it doesn't all get absorbed into your body.

We are not eating soil, we are eating plants (and animal flesh). An atom of (say) molybdenum taken up by a plant will be put into use in that plant in a way that's not dependent on its state in the soil.

Measurement and correction of soil trace element abundances -- often on a small scale -- is already state of the practice for large scale agriculture.

The whole micronutrient thing sounds like trying to apply a thin coating of science to a non-scientific thought process.