Following on from my previous post about the inadvisability of importing furrin (Argy) beef, allow me to point out the following things.
Mo-Kan Livestock owner Jim Hertzog told the lawmaker that another issue involves small cattle herds.
“We’re short on numbers. It’s just that simple, and the reason we’re short on numbers is three years of drought, and a lot of cows were sold and slaughtered, and they’re not there to raise the calves,” Hertzog said.
He added that the solution is to “rebuild the herd. The solution is not to bring in other beef.”
And as for those steep beef prices at the supermarket:
Restaurant owner Sherry Keegan blamed large packing houses. “It’s the big four, big five packing houses. They tend to manipulate the pricing by shortening their kill days,” she said.
Keegan explained that “rather than killing five days a week, having a five-day-a-week slaughter schedule, they’ll reduce it down to three days and the price of beef, price of meat will go up.”
The second may also be a result of the first, however (although Big Meat have never been known for their lack of greed and cupidity). Another reason for their slaughter slowdown could be a shortage of illegal alien workers in the packing plants…
Anyway, next up:
Matt Pearce, owner of Pearce Cattle Company, and Steve Lucie, a fifth-generation rancher, appeared on Newsmax’s “National Report” to discuss the increase of beef imports from Argentina aimed at driving down food costs in the U.S.
Pearce warned that importing foreign beef could expose U.S. herds to dangerous diseases and undermine domestic producers already struggling with high costs.
And finally:
The USDA said the national cattle herd is at a 75-year low, while consumer demand for beef has grown 9% over the past decade.
Because it takes time to rebuild herds, the department said it is investing to stabilize markets for ranchers over the long term and to make beef more affordable.
Ah yes… government stepping in to help solve a problem that they created in the first place.
The plan calls for the Agriculture and Interior departments to “streamline and expand” ranchers’ abilities to graze on federal lands. It will prioritize grazing on an estimated 24 million acres of vacant allotments across the country.
By the way, the reason that ranching permits were reduced came courtesy of the AgDept during the FuckJoeBiden administration, because it was all part of the drive to make consumers start eating insects instead of beef, or to cut back the effect of cow flatulence on the environment, or some other crap. #BigGreenStupidity
Read all three linked articles to get a full flavor of the complexity of the issue.
There is so much bullshit [sic] involved in this whole business that I’m starting to favor a simple solution to this Gordian Knot:
Feel free to suggest who or what should be at the naughty end of this gun barrel.
Only the most incompetent people seek employ with the gov’t thus it stands to reason the inferior quality of it’s service. Bordering, most of the time, on bold criminality.
Basically, if the gov’t is involved in any way you can expect performance to suffer.
The best gov’t is the least gov’t.
While I’m not in favor of importing foreign beef, I’m curious as to how importing beef – already slaughtered, butchered, and frozen, ready to package for grocery store shelves – can expose our domestic herd to dangerous diseases? I mean, bringing livestock across the Mexican border is a big problem, but from Argentina? I would assume we’d be shipping frozen steaks in refrigerated containers. Or does the big 5 packing plants intend on bring live animals up from Argentina and then slaughtering them here, for some stupid-ass reason?
Not mentioned in the clips you copied above is the whole covid mess. People couldn’t go to restaurants and lots of food production went to shit. Yeah, we’ve had droughts before, but the covid cough flu played a big part in that too.
I am with Don first thing that came to mind was his answer”Pearce warned that importing foreign beef ” he said beef not cattle.If the slaughter houses and the industry have gotten together to artificially inflate the prices bring the beef in!I am tiered of the BS personally myself.
I wonder how much of the opposition to Argentinian beef is from the big meat packers knowing that the cattle will be processed in Argentina and shipped up here frozen.
I don’t know. Certainly some. I think its the first time in 2 decades beef producers are getting decently paid too, and are happy with the windfall.
Beef and pork are shipped slaughtered hung on as a side. I remember the question on the mates test. They get inspected again when the arrive in the US. No one ships live cows so there is no issue from disease.
Locally replacement cows go from $1,500 to $3000 depending at which sale barn you go to. A few monied buyers are paying premium prices which drives the price up. As soon as they get what they want and leave, the prices drop by 30 to 50%.
The best practice for small herds (<100 head) is selling to local butchers or consumers. One friend's sells 1-3 cows a week to a restaurant buyer from NYC. They are processed locally and shipped to the city. Lot's of families getting together and splitting a carcass.
IMHO, small herd owners will be in better shape than the big boys who worry about inventory.and overhead.
Not to sound like Kamala Harris, but I grew up in the Cattle biz and my brother still runs the family ranch. So I understand all of the above. Marketing to small groups is more difficult than its believed (people back-out, delivering the meat is difficult, you need a local butcher, etc). So its not practical except on a boutique style of activity. The consolidated packing-houses are the villains mostly here, but if supply gets increased (even for hanging carcasses) eventually they are going to pay the producers less. I’m less sympathetic with the consumers here because they’ll bitch about food prices, but won’t cut back on their golf-outings, or RV purchases, to have better food. As for the EBT Annie’s, they ain’t buying beef anyway because they don’t sell it at AM/PM unless its in Taquito form.
> By the way, the reason that ranching permits were reduced came courtesy of the AgDept during the FuckJoeBiden administration,
I remember reading about it either during Obama’s first term, or Bush (Shrubs) second term. It may have (almost certainly did) continue/increase during the Biden Regency, but it started well before then.
Yes, the beef herds are at a modern all time low, thanks to the Biden administration and the drought. The herds need to be built back up, which means that fewer cows will be slaughtered. This drives beef prices up. The livestock owners are happy that their cattle are bringing in premium prices and want this to continue, so of course they are going to lobby against importing beef.
The slaughterhouses are cutting back on beef processing because there isn’t enough beef to keep them running full time. They are also taking more time with each carcass, getting the maximum amount of steak and roast compared to the scraps for hamburger. Hamburger prices show this, the difference between cheap hamburger and steak or roast has shrunk. Where I am, it’s at the point where a 10 pound 73/27 chub of hamburger is $42.97 and a 10 pound brisket is just $45.47.
The Argentinian beef is going to be mostly made into hamburger. They don’t do feedlots like we do, their beef is generally fresh off the range, tough and lean. That will drop the price of hamburger back down to where poor folks like me can afford to buy it more regularly, without affecting the price of steak that much.
Considering Gestation and age it is somewhere around 2 years to get one beef. Add in that 6-7 years and the cow needs to be replaced. I will admit most of my numbers come from the mid 60’s but that is a time old proposition. I go by lots that 2-300 head on them and they are empty. We are at least 5 years away from them being worked again.
Democrats should not be elected to be dog catchers. And my first choice to be put in front of that Ma Duece she is playing with.
Bovine gestation is 9months just like us. But its about 2 years from insemination to having a saleable animal.
we need to get the price of beef and food down through competition and eliminating red tape for farmers. Competition will drive prices lower. Time to break up some of the big meat packing companies.