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High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

mattstoller.substack.com

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

#241

Post by foxyv »

During 2020 and the Covid pandemic I just stopped buying meat. It seemed ridiculous to keep paying 70-80% of my grocery bill for just a few pounds of very low quality meat. A friend asked me to pick up a ribeye steak for a date and it was $12 a pound and looked like it came off a starving middle aged dairy cow. Zero marbling and super lean for a ribeye. Dad used to buy steaks like that to grind up for burgers at $2/lb less than 10 years ago.

Fresh vegetables have gone up too, but I'm not paying 20-40$ for a single 4 person meal anymore. Even the meat alternatives are starting to get competitive per pound. Even better is I can grow those in my back yard too.

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

#242

Post by mike00632 »

seventytwo wrote: post #201
kurthr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the government is actively killing it... they just aren't doing anything about the oligopolies and collusion that have always developed in these sort of situations. That may seem subtle, but many argue that we want to make the government do less to "keep them off our backs". Well, guess what these are the consequences. These markets may be "free", but they are not efficient, in fact they are arguably cor…

The voters have the power to curtail influence of big ag and other corporate oligarchies, but that requires not being afraid of voting for leftist ideas like class consciousness, unions, and stronger government regulation on big businesses.

I think it's more complicated than a simple left/right dichotomy. Bernie Sanders' biggest accomplishments as a Senator were giving billions of dollars to big ag as corporate subsidies (often to the dairy industry which donated heavily to his campaign). Giving taxpayer money to big ag is similar to the military industrial complex in that both sides of the political spectrum further it.

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

#243

Post by ryathal »

zmix wrote: post #213
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.

It's interesting to note, how all these "Competition is Good for the Business(tm)" folks, in reality, do not want any competition, at all.

Competition is good for business, but a lot of big companies have learned that it's better to compete at filling out paperwork the best rather than the best product.

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

#244

Post by nickstinemates »

goostavos wrote: post #223
nickstinemates wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like anything - there's startup costs and then maintenance costs and a lot of it can be automated. But, tl;dr not much at all (10 mins/day for the bulk of the time) after infrastructure/a system is built. I'll give you a simple example with chickens. On average, we eat a whole chicken once per week. So to be 100% self sufficient, lets say we need to grow 50 chickens. A common cornish cross chicken goes from 0-5/6lbs…

For the "processing," did you learn from someone, watch youtube videos, just... figure it out? How was the first time? After doing it for years, is it just mechanical to process them? It sounds really rewarding, but getting over the initial hump of doing the processing yourself is a big unknown to me.

Youtube videos are a huge help. There's plenty out there. Chickens get very docile when held upside down and so they just hang out in a kill cone until you've steeled yourself to cut their neck and let them drain.

Evisceration (the act of removing the innards) is the 'trickiest' part, specifically around the intestines and making sure you don't get any poop or bile on the meat.

Poop is mostly solved by not feeding them for 24 hours prior to slaughter. This makes them easier to handle as well as by then they know you and the sound of food.

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

#245

Post by ryandrake »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #163
loudmax wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession to Big Ag. If government were out of the picture would small-scale farmers be better able to compete with Big Ag? If you were making policy, what would you have government do instead?

Asset tax for large scale and absentee owners. Basically if you live on the farm you don't pay. If you own a property remotely or its above a certain scale you pay x% a year asset tax. I think this could solve a bunch of foot in the door issues around farming. To add to this they need to break up the meat processing side. In US there is something like 4 meat processors holding most of the market. It's far too dominan…

A steep tax on property owned by absentees would solve a lot of other societal ills, too. People speculatively buying multiple properties they don't live in, treating them like bars of gold in a vault rather than homes. People buying condos just to turn them into AirBNB hotels. Landlordism in general which is, in balance, a parasitic activity, even if it does serve a legitimate economic purpose.

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

#246

Post by hispanic »

If you are interested in taking action, consider donating to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund - https://www.farmtoconsumer.org/

Buying directly from farmers is also good. But, those farmers are constantly being unfairly harassed by regulators.

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

#247

Post by inetknght »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #214
robocat wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is too costly to dig and lay new fiber to the home underground Digging is not required in many locations. Citywide rollout in Christchurch (400k people, low density) mostly used horizontal underground drilling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzGZl0jKRS8 New Zealand (similar size & population to Oregon) with a population ~5 million, used a lending model to fund a national fibre rollout in a private-public partne…

That is awesome, I having no idea what Anerica’s excuse is then.

Oh that's easy.

Faster internet for residential service also requires faster interconnects. It requires public infrastructure, residential modem upgrades, residential line installations, backhaul and datacenter hardware upgrades, new servers to mine all that extra data, more expensive equipment to fix/repair line breakages, and better trained technicians who also understand fiber too instead of just copper.

Why waste money on that when the plebs are perfectly "happy" with ADSL or cable and pay a hundred bucks for shitty service and almost zero human support?

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

#248

Post by [deleted] »

the_only_law wrote: post #238
cheese_goddess wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely cannot tell whether you're outraging about circumcision or about trans kids having surgeries. "Ends of their dicks chopped off"? wa?

Given they’re specifically talking about babies, and the volume they mention, I think it’s safe to assume the former.

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by captainredbeard »

IronWolve wrote: post #26

Lots of small farmers are selling their cows at a profit, selling to local people, and having a butcher cut the meat. You just need to be able to have freezer space for a 1/2 or whole cow. The problem with 4 major meat packing plants, 2 owned by china, they control the market, pay less to the farmer, and get more from the consumer. Some States in turn, are allowing producers to pack their own meat, making more money…

Another compounding factor involves legality of selling meat.

You can sell live animals (and fractions of them, e.g. 1/2 or 1/4), which are in turned butchered for the customer, but you can only sell cuts if they are slaughtered at a USDA-inspected facility, which is relatively rare. Since most folks don't want to buy that much beef at once, it severely curtails the audience.

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

#250

Post by captainredbeard »

jdavis703 wrote: post #232
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid reminded me how privileged I am to live where we do. While I'm reading stories about people in big cities confined to their cramped apartments, my life was actually improving. With lockdown and WFH, I didn't need to commute into the office every day and when I did travel, the roads were almost empty. Rush hour was surreal! If I got bored, I could go for a walk and not run into a single other person. And with ev…

What? Where were you? Some of my favorite parks in the rural parts of the Bay Area were destroyed by all the extra visitors. Not too mention urban parks were more crowded: since clubs and bars were shut people would bring their alcohol, drugs and sound systems to the park to socialize.

Probably one of the non-coastal states.
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