I don’t think that beyond burgers are very healthy but my wife and I eat them at least once a week anyways. I like a maxed-out burger with the ‘works’ without having animals die for my eating pleasure. When I do occasionally eat real meat, I prefer no feed lot beef over pork or chicken because I understand that chickens and pigs live miserable lives while cattle get to live outside and graze.
I'd go as far as to say it's evil.
Also, it wouldn’t matter anyway: the climate impact of raising so many and feeding them carbon intensive grain is bonkers.
Note: i have no idea if the $45 is realistic, but the principle is there - much of the production cost of meat is payed by the state. The price of meat would increase if this practice stopped because without any increase in profits.
But despite their opinion, no, it isn't that expensive. That sort of analysis heavily relies on telling you what you want to hear, and expecting that you won't dig into the analysis and realize that if you applied the same standard to everything else in the world you'd get absurd results all over the place.
Edit: OP clarified with a source below that it would be closer to $15
Related would be the conflicting effects on supply of less economies of scale vs being able to utilize only the most efficient means for production (e.g., only the places most fit for it would be producing cattle, meaning that the marginal cost would be lower than in the previously utilized high cost areas, although this wouldn't be sufficient to counteract the original shock, it might help balance the other effects.)
Perhaps not to the same degree, I'm not sure, but worth pointing it out when claiming only one is a subsidized industry.
[1] Soybean Subsidies in the United States totaled $44.9 billion from 1995-2020 - https://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=soyb...
70% of that is for livestock feed.
The numbers may vary, but any credible source you are going to find will show that the vast majority of soy is grown for animal feed.
Other than that I just can't find any sources that corroborate what you say. Every single source I could find that has actual numbers contradicts your statement.
Take the US for example
Just over 70 percent of the soybeans grown in the United States are used for animal feed, with poultry being the number one livestock sector consuming soybeans, followed by hogs, dairy, beef and aquaculture. The second largest market for U.S. soybeans is for production of foods for human consumption, like salad oil or frying oil, which uses about 15 percent of U.S. soybeans. A distant third market for soybeans is biodiesel, using only about 5 percent of the U.S. soybean crop.
from https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...
Yeah because that’s how soy beans work dude. I think there must be some miscommunication here - the majority of the harvested soy bean is physically not palatable to humans.
Perhaps you are misunderstanding what “70 percent of the soybeans” means. 70 percent of the harvested soy material is not salable to humans. It’s called “soy meal”, look it up. It’s not like if you count all the beans that get picked, 70% of them go to cows. Each harvest is mechanically separated into its component parts and shipped to different consumers, and only a minority of the mass is suitable for oil production or direct consumption.
And just so we don’t end this discussion with misinformation I’m gonna leave a final quote here:
About 85 percent of the world’s soybeans are processed, or "crushed," annually into soybean meal and oil. Approximately 98 percent of the soybean meal that is crushed is further processed into animal feed with the balance used to make soy flour and proteins.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170112075924/http://www.soyate...
Have a great day!
Instead of attacking their existence, wouldn't it be a better idea to attack how they are unfairly applied to existing structures rather than new, less environmentally harmful options?
Edit: OK, I saw the article you linked. I guess in more rural areas this is something we never saw: I've known people who are smaller produces of beef/pork and never saw a dime of this money yet I pay less per pound than most people do in the store.
So enormous herds of cattle in the desert in CA owned by extremely politically connected ranchers will get enormous subsidies resulting in all this "Big Macs should cost $45" stuff.
Meanwhile I live in a civilized area that gets near five feet of rain per year. The cows reproduce and eat infinite free grass and water. Essentially all I pay my organic farmer buddy for is his labor, everything else is rounding error. His land is geologically unsuitable for factory style farming so there's no opportunity cost. I pay less than $3/lb live weight and some pittance to his buddy the butcher to process and freeze my half cow every year or two. Short of massive government intervention its hard to imagine how he'd go out of business; he's not getting any subsidies to be taken away.
I suspect the future is going to be much less level and much less equal. If you live in an area where infinite free water falls from the sky, even the poor people are going to have a high-ish standard of living. If you live in a desert... maybe not so comfortable of a life anymore... Note this also applies to plants, not just meats.
So the people have ultimately given up some things, ergo subsidising the farmers.
I overestimated; we should be paying 3x more for meat than we do at retail.
There are also cases where the government restricts crop production.
http://sites.gsu.edu/us-constipedia/wickard-v-filburn-1942/
https://thecounter.org/biden-administration-farmers-conserva...