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by BadBadJellyBean 59 days ago
"The market" doesn't work as long as costs to the environment can be externalized. If the cost of climate change and lost living space would be added to the cost of beef it might be fair. But it isn't. Methane released by cows, cutting down rain forests for feed, and all the transporting costs us all dearly. But it doesn't cost the manufacturers anything directly so beef can be cheap.
3 comments
enoint 58 days ago
We're more than 40 years past the first boycotts on rainforest beef. Not small boycotts, either; big ones which were effective at scale. If we translated the concerns here into Chinese, would it affect the current top importer of rainforest beef?
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brainwad 59 days ago
Just slap a pigouvian tax on it.
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sirbutters 59 days ago
And meat is heavily subsidized by the government. It's insanity and corruption.
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RhysU 59 days ago
In the US agricultural subsidies for 2024 were overwhelmingly for corn ($3.2B), soybeans ($1.9B), cotton ($998M), and wheat ($960M). Pasture comes in 5th ($741M).

https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-da...

Tofu and ethanol may be more price-distorted by the US government than is beef, but I dunno how to quickly support that idea with hard data beyond what I cited above.

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stvltvs 59 days ago
Depending on how we measure it, either 58% or 75% of that heavily subsidized soy goes to feed animals.

https://insideanimalag.org/share-of-soybean-crop-for-feed/

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datsci_est_2015 59 days ago
Have you been to the Midwest to observe the scale of corn and soybean operations? I would wager the number of calories per dollar subsidy produced by the corn and soybean industries outweighs handily the calories per dollar subsidy produced by cattle operations, especially given the 10% reduction in efficiency per trophic level.

Also, how much does beef benefit from cheap feed prices (corn and soy) due to subsidies as well?

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RhysU 58 days ago
Beef prices are high right now.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000703112

If the intent of the government is to pour subsidies into domestic beef production to stabilize prices they're doing a crap job.

Compare corn: https://www.macrotrends.net/2532/corn-prices-historical-char...

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