Well being - Cattle and Beef

A primer on the USA beef cattle industry

When I was a kid in 1972, there was a shortage of beef - a true meat crisis. The price skyrocketed. Like most Americans, my family switched to eating a lot less meat, and that trend continued on into the present throughout America. Which prompted a popular advertising campaign. “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner”. This successful industrial marketing effort was launched in 1992 by the National Livestock and Meat Board and was funded by the Beef Checkoff Program.

Fast forward to the present, and just as many people are rediscovering the benefits of eating more meat, not less - there is another meat crisis.

Right now, we are about to see the price of American beef go off the charts. Why? Because there is a beef shortage, for which there is no end in sight. US cattle herds have shrunk to a 73 year low- the lowest numbers since 1951. Although main-stream media blames a drought in the “fly-over states” in 2023, the truth is that a lot farmers have gotten out of the business as hay costs rise, due to the price of fertilizer (Russia is the largest producer of fertilizer in the world) and consequent to the regulatory burden of cattle production, which increases with each passing year. The World Bank reports that global fertilizer prices had risen 30% by early 2022, which is after an 80% hike in 2021. When farmers leave farming, they are not readily replaced. Farming is a very specialized industry, which is often tied to family farms (particularly for beef production), and often multigenerational.

Nationally, more than 20 million acres of farmland were lost during the last five years. And the number of farms, which totaled 2.04 million in 2017, decreased by 141,733 - a 6.9% decrease. About 88 percent of U.S. farms are small family farms.

The latest census numbers show the number of farmers over the age of 65 is outpacing younger farmers. Almost 1.3 million farmers are now at or beyond retirement age, while just 300,000 farmers are under the age of 35.

In the press release quoted above, American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said “The latest census numbers put in black and white the warnings our members have been expressing for years.” This all means that consumers will face higher retail prices than they did in 2023.

These prices will be buffered by the fact that the USA imports more beef than it exports. But a reliance on imported meat is bad for America. We will lose more jobs, livelihoods and a way of life. This trend must be reversed.

According to Dr. Brooke Miller, past president of the United States Cattlemen’s Association, the outlook for beef farmers is dire. He cites a number of alarming statistics. Between 1987 and 2012, the USA lost 113 thousand beef cattle ranches. Another study documents that during the last four decades, the USA lost 544 thousand beef ranches, which is a 43% loss of ranches in total. There has been a decrease of 7 million beef cows each year during this period.

NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was passed in 1994, and it is estimated that the USA lost 175,000 ranches due to its passage. Since then, seventy-five percent of the feedlots have disappeared, although the size of each feedlot has grown exponentially. There are now only four corporations controlling 85% of cattle slaughter. These corporations mostly control the price of beef throughout the USA.

The bottom line is that the profits for the cattle market have been significantly reduced for the small cattle rancher - which are the majority of cattle ranches in the USA. While profits have significantly increased for the end-processor.

Family cattle farmers believe that NAFTA favors large agribusinesses over small-scale farms, and has made it difficult for USA beef farmers to compete against cheaper imports.

NAFTA has created a large import market - which has driven US cattle ranchers out of business. It is no surprise that many smaller cattle farmers and ranchers have given up due to the flood of cheaper imported beef. The majority of those that are left often have to work at extra jobs outside of the farm, as between the imports and the large slaughter operations which control pricing there is little profit . But bottom line is that still to this day, the family farm is an important element of the cattle production pipeline in the USA.

For U.S. beef production, a majority of beef operations have fewer than 20 beef cows while a small number of large-scale producers (9% of total operations that have 100 or more cows) manage a majority (53%) of the U.S. herd.

From 1992 to 2012, small shifts in the distribution of beef cows have been observed. While the average head per operation was slightly smaller in 2012, large operations account for a growing share of total cows. Small operations (those with fewer than 100 cows) accounted for a majority of cows in 1992 (52%), but this shifted by 2012 when large operations (those with 100 or more cows) represented the majority of U.S. beef cows (53%).

But those smaller ranches are disappearing fast, partly due to the passage of NAFTA, decreasing profitability and increasing regulatory burdens - including new regulations involving climate change and environmental protection (EPA).

Many climate change and animal rights activists are working hard to switch people over to a plant-based diet. But the truth is that switching consumers to plant-based diet is in the interests of “big ag” - ergo, the transnational corporations who control the grain, seed oil and legume commodities. Naive activists are being used for an agenda being driven by big corporations, big finance, and the WEF.

According to the CDC, in 2015 -processed foods make up over 60% of the American diet. In less than a decade, ultra-processed foods alone have increased to 73% of the American diet. This is unhealthy. Overweight and obesity rates continue to soar. A plant-based diet promises one thing, but delivers something far worse. Processed plant-based foods dominate the market and are cheaper than their whole food counterparts.

In 1975, 40% of Americans were overweight or obese. In 2022, almost 80% of Americans are overweight or obese.

Is this a coincidence?

A bizarre lack of data is available to be mined for statistics on overweight USA residents. The CDC is entirely focused on obesity state-by-state comparisons, with no historic data readily obtained, and no easily obtained data on historic percentages of people overweight in the USA. The issue of health and being overweight (which they define differently than obesity and morbid obesity) is mostly overlooked.

But an example illustrating how prevalent this issue is can be observed by viewing the following chart (note this chart is for women only - no similar chart could be found for men).

Almost all of the data found seems to end around 2016… But here is an interesting chart from Our World in Data.

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Jill and I were overweight and set out to loose the pounds quite a while ago. We stopped eating sugar, excess wheat and carbs, particularly when we are at home. The results in our energy level, ability to walk and even to run distances has been dramatic. We feel and look as though we have added years to our lives.

A diet high in processed carbohydrates, sugar, seed oils and salt (as found in most ultra processed foods) is not healthy. The preservatives, stabilizers, salt, unhealthy fats, excess simple carbs and sugars are well known issues with such foods. Yet, the amount of these foods that make up the American diet continues to grow as the rates of people at unhealthy weights continues to tick up.

Furthermore, the refined grains and sugars found in the typical American diet and specifically ultra-processed foods have trace amounts of glyphosate and other pesticides that are linked to cancer, decreased fertility and sperm counts and are also known to promote auto-immune related diseases.

Link to the study below

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Beef produced on American farms, mostly family farms, is healthy for our economy, our health, our way of life, our small towns and communities and even our environment - if some basic regenerative farming practices are utilized.

Supporting farm to table beef is not hard. Grass-fed or pastured meat is, of course, the best option. Furthermore, when you know the farmer, you can query him or her on herbicide and pesticides used on the pastures and feed.

A simple search such as “farm beef for sale” will yield many results for local farms in your area that are doing direct sales, and there are some online aggregator sites for local beef sales as well. We like to buy a quarter cow and freeze it for storage.

If not a direct buy, many local health food stores or Amish/Mennonite stores and farmer’s markets also sell local meats. Yes, it is more expensive. You get what you pay for.

For the ambitious, if you have a few acres or more and enjoy farming, consider buying a couple of feeder calves and growing them up. This is a super interesting DIY project and can easily become a passion. It takes some research and resources to get started on this journey - but the joys of growing your own food creep up on you, and soon you will find that you would not have it any other way. It is also a type of insurance - in case things go very wrong in the USA.

A final note -

“Buyer beware”: The (voluntary) label “Product of USA” allows beef and other foods not grown, raised or even slaughtered in the USA, but instead “processed” in the USA to be labelled as such. This law was under the “COOL” (Country of Origin Labeling) rules, and have been modified numerous times - due to litigation by the WTO against the USA. It has made product origin labels almost useless, unless it is a completely unprocessed food, such as produce.

Which comes back to buying local.

And growing your own.

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