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Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

usda.gov

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Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#111

Post by gruez »

alephnerd wrote: post #97
SoftTalker wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already happening. Beef is rapidly becomming unaffordable. A steak at the supermarket is >$20. Can't imagine what they cost at a restaurant. I've switched to mostly turkey, chicken, and pork.

That's due to issues around monopolization in the Dairy and Cattle industry in the US [1]. 70% of all processors in the dairy and cattle industry are now owned by 3 companies. Processors don't own cattle - they just process raw material like dairy and meat into cheese and pasteurized milk and handle the entire supply chain. But because they control the supply chain, distribution, and even the feed [0] used they can s…

Is this supported by the data? During the pandemic people were also blaming "monopolization" or "consolidation" for the rise in grocery prices, but in reality the margins of publicly traded supermarket companies went up by a percentage point or two.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#112

Post by FpUser »

andsoitis wrote: post #64
Noumenon72 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone must have decided they weren't "essential". Big mistake.

Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment.

>"Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment."

We can also live in a cave, better for the environment.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#113

Post by alephnerd »

gruez wrote: post #111
alephnerd wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's due to issues around monopolization in the Dairy and Cattle industry in the US [1]. 70% of all processors in the dairy and cattle industry are now owned by 3 companies. Processors don't own cattle - they just process raw material like dairy and meat into cheese and pasteurized milk and handle the entire supply chain. But because they control the supply chain, distribution, and even the feed [0] used they can s…

Is this supported by the data? During the pandemic people were also blaming "monopolization" or "consolidation" for the rise in grocery prices, but in reality the margins of publicly traded supermarket companies went up by a percentage point or two.

Yep. To quote The Bullvine [0] (Axios for the cattle and dairy industry):

"Here’s another force reshaping the industry that has nothing to do with immigration: processor consolidation. According to industry analysis, just three major cooperatives—Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, and California Dairies—now handle over 80% of the nation’s milk marketing.

These processors need massive, consistent volumes. New processing plants require millions of pounds of milk per day to operate efficiently. From a logistical standpoint, it’s far more efficient to contract with a dozen 5,000-cow dairies than 500 smaller operations.

I was at a dairy conference in Wisconsin last year where a DFA representative candidly admitted: “We’re building plants that need 4-5 million pounds per day. We can’t deal with 200 small farms—we need 10 large ones.”

This “processor pull” creates powerful incentives for farm-level consolidation. I’ve seen it happen firsthand in regions where a new mega-processing plant opens—suddenly, there’s pressure on every farm in the area to either scale up or get squeezed out"

Also [1]

-----------

The fact that a country like India can support 228 milk cooperatives each generating around $500M-2B in revenue and outcompete American dairy+cattle in production and even reducing environmental impact with marginal subsidizes [2] means distribution+processing consolidation and it's side effects (cattle monoculture, non-competitive prices given to farmers, dairy processers NOW becoming animal feed manufacturers) are a good example of market failures due to oligopolic control.

No one at the WI and MI state Dem level is chatting about this based on some of my own meeting with them recently. This is the kind of swing vote topic that can flip all 3 branches of government in 26 and 28.

If someone like me who has been somewhat hesitant about Lina Khan until after getting deep into the dairy industry recently, I think HNers should recognize the opportunity this provides. 84% of Americans consume dairy and dairy products [3] - this is an easy win if some sympathy was provided.

Yet, the comments I'm seeing here on HN (and with those who I chatted with at the state level Dems) are reminiscent to those who blamed autoworkers and coalworkers for not learning to code back in 2014.

[0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/dairys-great-cons...

[1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-farm-surviv...

[2] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/from-extinction-t...

[3] - https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights...

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#114

Post by spamizbad »

andsoitis wrote: post #64
Noumenon72 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone must have decided they weren't "essential". Big mistake.

Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment.

I guess nature is “finding a way” after all…

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#115

Post by AlecSchueler »

raverbashing wrote: post #75
andsoitis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment.

Funny, you don't seem to have beef with the worm eating beef But it can and does infect humans and other animals

They didn't say they had beef with anyone eating beef.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#116

Post by genghisjahn »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #102
SoftTalker wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already happening. Beef is rapidly becomming unaffordable. A steak at the supermarket is >$20. Can't imagine what they cost at a restaurant. I've switched to mostly turkey, chicken, and pork.

Im still getting outer skirt for $8 a pound at my grocery. Seems pretty affordable to me

I get great cuts of steak for less than $10 all the time.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#117

Post by gruez »

alephnerd wrote: post #105
andsoitis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health, the environment.

> Better for health, the environment. India has an equally large cattle industry that outproduces American dairy and cattle, yet their industry has a fraction of the carbon and methane impact as American dairy and cattle rearing [0] because the feed used in Indian industry is crop residue instead of industrialized meat+grain mixtures. American Ag is hyperconsolidated into 3 processors [1] which makes it difficult for…

>India has an equally large cattle industry that outproduces American dairy and cattle

That's a tad misleading. The statistics I could find only says that India outproduces the US in dairy, not beef. Rounding

>yet their industry has a fraction of the carbon and methane impact as American dairy and cattle rearing [0]

I did a cursory search in your source for "carbon" and "methane" and couldn't find anything to back this claim, only vague claims about how India does "Regenerative farming" and is therefore "low methane".

>because the feed used in Indian industry is crop residue instead of industrialized meat+grain mixtures.

That's not scalable and only works because the country is poor and beef/dairy consumption isn't high. There's no way you can supply American level demand for beef/dairy by only using crop residue.

>American Ag is hyperconsolidated into 3 processors which makes it difficult for innovations to develop, whereas an equally large country like India has 26 state run dairy cooperatives and multiple private sector players.

You can easily tell an opposite story about how consolidate companies have bigger budgets for R&D and capital projects, as opposed to 26 cooperatives each trying to implement some sort of strategy.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#118

Post by ModernMech »

alephnerd wrote: post #113
gruez wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this supported by the data? During the pandemic people were also blaming "monopolization" or "consolidation" for the rise in grocery prices, but in reality the margins of publicly traded supermarket companies went up by a percentage point or two.

Yep. To quote The Bullvine [0] (Axios for the cattle and dairy industry): "Here’s another force reshaping the industry that has nothing to do with immigration: processor consolidation. According to industry analysis, just three major cooperatives—Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, and California Dairies—now handle over 80% of the nation’s milk marketing. These processors need massive, consistent volumes. New pro…

Market failures due to oligarchic control is the natural end state of capitalism. Everything is going as intended, the point of the system is to produce oligarchs, not efficient markets.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#119

Post by gruez »

alephnerd wrote: post #113
gruez wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this supported by the data? During the pandemic people were also blaming "monopolization" or "consolidation" for the rise in grocery prices, but in reality the margins of publicly traded supermarket companies went up by a percentage point or two.

Yep. To quote The Bullvine [0] (Axios for the cattle and dairy industry): "Here’s another force reshaping the industry that has nothing to do with immigration: processor consolidation. According to industry analysis, just three major cooperatives—Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, and California Dairies—now handle over 80% of the nation’s milk marketing. These processors need massive, consistent volumes. New pro…

By "data" I was referring to data to support the claim that consolidation led to increase in prices (eg. margin expansion), not that consolidation was happening at all. It's the same with supermarkets. There's no doubt that consolidation was happening, and there's even evidence that it led to higher prices, but the absolute effect on grocery bills seems to be marginal.

Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread

#120

Post by SoftTalker »

genghisjahn wrote: post #116
HDThoreaun wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im still getting outer skirt for $8 a pound at my grocery. Seems pretty affordable to me

I get great cuts of steak for less than $10 all the time.

At a supermarket? Or local butcher/processor?
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