Maybe it's different in your country, but in the USA, meat production is heavily subsidized by the federal government, and the environmental externalities (carbon and otherwise) generated are not exactly priced in, either.

It really isn't "heavily" subsidized at all. Please provide evidence for these claims.

From what I've looked up It seems like BLM land is cheaper than private land. The current fee of $1.35 per animal unit month for 2021 is the minimum that was set in 1981. So to me it looks like we are giving the farmers cheap land. [1] [2]

However, I also read an article [3] that seems to indicate that the complete opposite was true as farmers who use BLM land have to maintain it which made public land cost $1.20 more than private (2011). However, I don't really trust this that much as the guy who wrote it was a farmer and on the "Public Lands Council" which is a pro ranching organization. [4]

[1] https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-and-forest-service-ann... [2] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RS21232.pdf [3] https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/27344... [4] https://publiclandscouncil.org/

(I didn't spent a lot of time researching but I found those articles interesting so hopefully you will as well!)

I don't understand how BLM land maintenance is a justification for saying that there are heavy subsidies for the beef industry.

Are you contending that most beef interacts with BLM properties in some fashion?

Sorry I don't really understand what your saying. I simply found some interesting links that I thought people would find useful. The first two links are trying to show that the farmers are getting really cheap land (AKA government giving subsidies to them) as the current price is the minimum set in 1981.

The third link is just a counter argument to that says although the land looks cheap in reality its more expensive because of land maintenance.

However, I don't trust that article a lot as it was written by a rancher that is in a pro ranching organization so there is a big bias.

I guess my confusion was - the original post was about farm subsidies for the beef industry. I do not believe BLM price reductions count toward that, as a vast, vast minority of beef ever interacts with those properties.

While they are a subsidy, I do not believe they are relevant at all to the argument. That's my point, I guess.

Corn, bean, and other row crop subsidies, sure. But BLM is just a distraction, I think.

A 2013 estimate of annual meat subsidies puts them around $38bn[1], whereas a 2019 industry estimate of annual sales sits at a bit over $217bn[2]. You're free to make your own judgement as to what constitutes "heavily," I suppose, but to me, that first number seems like a substantial portion of the second one.

Edit: The $38bn appears to also include egg and dairy subsidies, but Americans appear to spend substantially less per annum on those commodities compared to meat[3][4], such that the federal subsidies still appear to make up a rather large fraction of the (retail value of!) annual consumption.

[1]https://meatonomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/sample-chapt...

[2]http://www.themarketworks.org/stats

[3]https://www.statista.com/statistics/417446/us-dairy-departme...

[4]https://www.uspoultry.org/economic_data/

38 billion according to David Robinson Simon, Meatonomics. Berkeley, California. Conari Press, 2013.

not exactly - cattle farming is very very heavily subsidized. The true price is definitely not baked in

This is a talking point for the environmental left, but it's not really true. Ranchers don't get cash subsidies (most other crops do). Farmland, including pastureland, is generally taxed at a lower rate than other lands, but that's because we usually want to disincentivize conversion to other uses. Likewise, sometimes there are NRCS grants available, but those are for things like wetland investments or fallowing ground. Public land grazing rates are lower than what you'd typically pay for private lands, but public lands generally have very low value/productivity with huge tracts of unfenced ground requiring relatively large investments to retrieve and drive cattle, and with a much higher mortality rates. Even if public land grazing were marginally less expensive, only a very small portion of cattle are fed on public lands -- I think it's something less than 2%. People like to distort the meaning of "subsidies," to cast disfavored industries in a negative light, but cattle are no more subsidized than housing or roads or cars or computers or any of the other things that make life better.

> most other crops do

And some of these crops are used in finishing lots.

> but cattle are no more subsidized than housing or roads or cars or computers or any of the other things that make life better.

I think it’s questionable that cattle make “like better”. They are an inefficient form of food who suffer when we kill them, and we don’t need to eat them to eat delicious, nutritious food.

Do you have any evidence or a link explaining what these subsidies are? I have been unable to find anything that is not supremely partisan. The only subsidies I can find to support this are FEMA disaster relief and some grants that encourage ranchers to do certain conservation practices.