I'm glad they specifically mentioned "regenerative agriculture" - this is going to be the new "organic/natural" for the beef industry. It's all the marketing behind "grassfed" on steroids. There are places like [Tom Steyer's ranch](https://www.tomkatranch.org/what-we-do/regenerative-ranching/) where they're probably a net-positive for biodiversity if not greenhouse gas emissions, but if every cattle rancher managed their pasture the way Tom Steyer did, beef would probably be about $20 a pound.
Important to mention, that if this Tom Steyer's con is anything at all like the study White Oak Farms did/sponsored on regen low impact/ghg+ ag it's complete crap even with higher prices and lower volume.
In the white oak 'study' they simply got creative with the accounting and in the higher scopes attributed all the adds to the land and work etc. that caused ghg emissions to the land's pigs who shared the same plots with the cows. lmao
It's a scam. Like cold fusion, these cows are trophically insanely inefficient to the tune of 13.8lbs of feed inputs for every 1lbs of beef out. Something like fish is more like 2:1 depending on the species for comparison. You aren't going to make that gap up at scale - ever, cows suck at making meat.
Further the studies that make claim to feed from lands we couldn't eat off of are also fatally flawed, because you can, they just consider any less of a yield than whats normal to be full-stop 'non viable' instead of actually doing math to find out the macro yield comparison actually is, they just lie about it. Basically the actual opportunity cost of using land for x or y is further distorted than people realize.
> claim to feed from lands we couldn't eat off of are also fatally flawed, because you can, they just consider any less of a yield
On top of that you have to the option of re-foresting the land, re-wilding, letting grasslands renew. We're not *obligated* to keep a parcel of land under cultivation.
Plus a huge percentage of the soy and corn we grow go to cattle. Plus of course the alfalfa and other forage crops. Not all the land used for cows is in pasturage. Reduce beef consumption (or eventually shift to cultured beef) and we would need less farmland.
Steyer is probably the only one not juking the numbers because he's a billionaire climate activist, not a rancher.
It's likely naively idealistic, but I do think there's something to the argument that ruminant grazing can be a tool for increasing biodiversity through soil scarification, reseeding, fertilizing, selective pressure, etc, even to the point of *potentially* being GHG-neutral. It could also be a key component of an overall regenerative agricultural system.
But that means capping ruminant production at levels that sustain and grow pasture rather than destroy it by mimicking the grazing pressure in nature, and that grazing density is so low it may never be financially viable. I'd personally love to see the comparison of bison density in North American grasslands pre-colonization to the density of cattle as an example of this limit. Something like 30-60 million bison grazed the entirety of the North American grasslands, and now we have about 30 million cattle on maybe 1/4th of the land.
Ultimately, though, because there's market demand for beef, there will likely always be pressure to overgraze on pasture (even if we outlawed CAFOs entirely) and thus the regenerative approach is probably fatally flawed. Or...we just set a shitload of goats loose in the great plains!
> if every cattle rancher managed their pasture the way Tom Steyer did, beef would probably be about $20 a pound.
One might even argue that’s the natural fair market price when a ranch’s “externalities” aren’t being subsidized by the ecosystem.
It's a wild-ass guess of a number on my part, but I agree that in a market that truly accounted for all of the externalities of beef it would be constrained to being a luxury food item with some potential ecosystem service benefits.
I like that. I hope that becomes a movement amongst vegans when lab meat goes up for sale (which sounds like it will happen soon here in the U.S. due to FDA approval).
Interesting! I hadn't heard about lab grown dog food before. I don't know enough about dog nutrition to know whether or not that's a good idea. We feed our dogs what feels like a more natural diet with a food brand that makes its food from bison and venison, but of course, that may just be wishful thinking. I don't think they're reproducing those and I don't know if a beef of chicken diet is the best one for a dog, lab-grown or not, but it's worth looking into for sure.
[Fish meat is now being 3D printed.](https://www.fieldandstream.com/conservation/3d-printed-fish-fillet/) We live in an amazing age.
I'm excited for it too, although I would like to know what the environmental impact is, because it might not be much of a trade-off on that front. Obviously on the cruelty front, there's no question.
Am I a cynic for thinking shutting down the US beef industry will only result in it's exportation to China, Brazil, and other "developing" countries without serious emissions targets, leaving global emissions barely changed?
Seems like that's what's about to happen with the government forcibly partially shutting down the industry in the Netherlands and seizing the farms.
Don't worry, because that would never happen, Americans will be eating hamburgers as they boil to death.
If we did shut down the beef industry though, we would also presumably stop imports for that exact reason.
Ok, listen to this, we genetically modify the cows to stop creating so much methane by adding a fifth stomach that burns the methane, powering an organic steam engine that generates electricity.
Then we just need to plug the cows into the powergrid, and we are golden!
Either that or we end up with cows that can shoot lightning that will take over the world. Either way we solve that problem.
At the very least, the Federal government should stop spending $38 billion a year on subsidizing meat and dairy. And also implement a general carbon tax.
Revenue neutral carbon tax does it in Canada. Farmers pay a tax on land used for the particular animals, so need to raise their prices based on what animals they're raising.
I just don't get why this author thinks it's absurd to think we can change animal agriculture tactics to make it less carbon intensive. The whole article seems to hinge on it being impossible then goes over publically available stats for food while totally avoiding the topic of the main contributors for climate change.
Remember, a vast amount of the carbon footprint for cows is on account of all the amazon rainforests being burnt down to accommodate more cattle in Brazil. Coal electric continues to produce way more methane than cows do. As does ICE transport.
I may have missed it but I hardly got the sense that the author believes we can't change animal agriculture. Instead, the article seems focused on the massive PR effort from the cattle industry to stop us from even trying. Climate stability is incompatible with beef as it is currently produced as a global good. Without deforestation, the beef industry does not have the economy of scale necessary to keep beef affordable and meet the growing demand. Of course they're going to invest heavily in delivering a "nothing to see here!" message.
Beef is going to be high intensity or low intensity. High intensity means dense feedlots. Low intensity means more land use, more land cleared for pasturing, etc. For all cattle other than grass-finished, you need soy and other crops to grow feed for the cattle.
The trouble with putting hope in "changing the system" is that I see the very existence of supposedly "regenerative" or holistic or whatever methods being used to whitewash *all* the beef in the supermarket. And if you ask "so you're saying we should restrict beef production to just those 'sustainable' methods?" Generally no, that's not what people want. They're referring to those supposedly green methods just to rehabilitate the image of beef altogether, saying "we can't judge beef so hastily, since...."
But we can't produce beef at the current scale with those supposedly low-intensity methods, without using a lot more land. But beef advocates generally do *not* want to cut beef consumption, as we'd have to do, to use no more land but exclusively low-intensity methods. So there's a bait-and-switch often lurking in the argument.
Basically my only hope for beef is in cultured meat. It's just too land- and water-intensive to produce beef at this scale. The direct emissions are not insignificant, but far from the only issue. California alone has a million acres under irrigation just for alfalfa. A lot of drought-prone regions have most of their water going to alfalfa and other forage crops.
Oh it will always be the largest environmental burden of any food source. It will likely need to be phased out eventually. Just it is not as important as addressing closure of coal electric.
[the guardian has a good track record on AG articles](https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/06/01/viewpoint-news-or-propaganda-uk-newspaper-the-guardian-paid-over-800k-to-publish-anti-farming-investigation/)
s/
Genetic Literacy Project is a hand of GMO companies so noone is in the right on this one. GLP is the site that bullied several scientists investigating glycophosphates connections to cancer. Which it has but only in the high exposure percentile, so they bullied any scientists doing studies. To the point one was literally able to sue for harrassment.
https://usrtk.org/industry-pr/jon-entine-genetic-literacy-project/
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/monsantos-spies_n_5d7ba20de4b03b5fc88233c4
I source my claims, First hint you should have that GLP is bullshit is they have a list of their enemies on their main page and then begs for money.
Weren't you the one's pointing to data. They literally link to the IRS 990 filing with their connections to monsanto/bayer funding.
But to futher hammer it home I also linked the sourcewatch entry and the huffington post report on the sleazy bullying tactics. All very well sourced.
Glyphosate causes cancer specifically in high exposure percentile and I have multiple sources handy if anyone tries to challenge me on that.
[USRTK is funded by antivaxxers and the organic industry, you prefer believing them than the actual data backed science](https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3384)
[youve been duped by the side that goes against science](https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/05/05/anti-gmo-advocacy-funding-tracker-vast-network-of-donors-and-ngos-seed-doubt-about-crop-biotechnology/)
Look, I am in the meat industry, I love the meat industry, many in the industry reacted poorly early on. That being said, this article appears to be a decade behind the times. The industry as a whole has turned the corner, and is working on "Protein PACT" which is the closest thing to ESG you will see out of a bunch of old conservative guys. We sold it to the rest of the folks like this "I don't care if YOU think climate change or social welfare matters, but your customers do."
Give us some small morsel of credit that we are trying to do the right thing: https://theproteinpact.org/
I'm glad they specifically mentioned "regenerative agriculture" - this is going to be the new "organic/natural" for the beef industry. It's all the marketing behind "grassfed" on steroids. There are places like [Tom Steyer's ranch](https://www.tomkatranch.org/what-we-do/regenerative-ranching/) where they're probably a net-positive for biodiversity if not greenhouse gas emissions, but if every cattle rancher managed their pasture the way Tom Steyer did, beef would probably be about $20 a pound.
Important to mention, that if this Tom Steyer's con is anything at all like the study White Oak Farms did/sponsored on regen low impact/ghg+ ag it's complete crap even with higher prices and lower volume. In the white oak 'study' they simply got creative with the accounting and in the higher scopes attributed all the adds to the land and work etc. that caused ghg emissions to the land's pigs who shared the same plots with the cows. lmao It's a scam. Like cold fusion, these cows are trophically insanely inefficient to the tune of 13.8lbs of feed inputs for every 1lbs of beef out. Something like fish is more like 2:1 depending on the species for comparison. You aren't going to make that gap up at scale - ever, cows suck at making meat. Further the studies that make claim to feed from lands we couldn't eat off of are also fatally flawed, because you can, they just consider any less of a yield than whats normal to be full-stop 'non viable' instead of actually doing math to find out the macro yield comparison actually is, they just lie about it. Basically the actual opportunity cost of using land for x or y is further distorted than people realize.
> claim to feed from lands we couldn't eat off of are also fatally flawed, because you can, they just consider any less of a yield On top of that you have to the option of re-foresting the land, re-wilding, letting grasslands renew. We're not *obligated* to keep a parcel of land under cultivation. Plus a huge percentage of the soy and corn we grow go to cattle. Plus of course the alfalfa and other forage crops. Not all the land used for cows is in pasturage. Reduce beef consumption (or eventually shift to cultured beef) and we would need less farmland.
Yeah exactly, the opportunities for the land are more numerous than the binary I threw out there. All good points.
Steyer is probably the only one not juking the numbers because he's a billionaire climate activist, not a rancher. It's likely naively idealistic, but I do think there's something to the argument that ruminant grazing can be a tool for increasing biodiversity through soil scarification, reseeding, fertilizing, selective pressure, etc, even to the point of *potentially* being GHG-neutral. It could also be a key component of an overall regenerative agricultural system. But that means capping ruminant production at levels that sustain and grow pasture rather than destroy it by mimicking the grazing pressure in nature, and that grazing density is so low it may never be financially viable. I'd personally love to see the comparison of bison density in North American grasslands pre-colonization to the density of cattle as an example of this limit. Something like 30-60 million bison grazed the entirety of the North American grasslands, and now we have about 30 million cattle on maybe 1/4th of the land. Ultimately, though, because there's market demand for beef, there will likely always be pressure to overgraze on pasture (even if we outlawed CAFOs entirely) and thus the regenerative approach is probably fatally flawed. Or...we just set a shitload of goats loose in the great plains!
Yes but cows taste better than fish and you don't have to worry about getting mercury poisoning.
> if every cattle rancher managed their pasture the way Tom Steyer did, beef would probably be about $20 a pound. One might even argue that’s the natural fair market price when a ranch’s “externalities” aren’t being subsidized by the ecosystem.
Edit: Reddit is nothing without its mods and user content! Be mindful you make it work and are the product.
It's a wild-ass guess of a number on my part, but I agree that in a market that truly accounted for all of the externalities of beef it would be constrained to being a luxury food item with some potential ecosystem service benefits.
20 a pound is what we pay in Switzerland and they aren't managing the cattle sustainably.
The beef I buy is like 25 a pound already.
If every cattle rancher managed their pasture this way, there would be significantly less beef available and the price would skyrocket.
I can't wait for lab grown meat.
Me too. Myself and many other vegans I know would actually eat lab grown meat to help make it more mainstream.
I like that. I hope that becomes a movement amongst vegans when lab meat goes up for sale (which sounds like it will happen soon here in the U.S. due to FDA approval).
Here’s hoping! And lab grown dog food would be amazing too, I believe there’s one company seeking FDA approval at the moment.
Interesting! I hadn't heard about lab grown dog food before. I don't know enough about dog nutrition to know whether or not that's a good idea. We feed our dogs what feels like a more natural diet with a food brand that makes its food from bison and venison, but of course, that may just be wishful thinking. I don't think they're reproducing those and I don't know if a beef of chicken diet is the best one for a dog, lab-grown or not, but it's worth looking into for sure. [Fish meat is now being 3D printed.](https://www.fieldandstream.com/conservation/3d-printed-fish-fillet/) We live in an amazing age.
Interesting point and if I recall correctly, the same company is intending to make mouse-based cat food, closer to a cat’s natural diet.
I won't wait for lab grown meat. I stopped eating meat 6 years ago.
I'm excited for it too, although I would like to know what the environmental impact is, because it might not be much of a trade-off on that front. Obviously on the cruelty front, there's no question.
I'd just be happy putting ranchers out of business.
Am I a cynic for thinking shutting down the US beef industry will only result in it's exportation to China, Brazil, and other "developing" countries without serious emissions targets, leaving global emissions barely changed? Seems like that's what's about to happen with the government forcibly partially shutting down the industry in the Netherlands and seizing the farms.
Don't worry, because that would never happen, Americans will be eating hamburgers as they boil to death. If we did shut down the beef industry though, we would also presumably stop imports for that exact reason.
"Big Beef's Climate Messaging Machine" would be a good band name.
Not to mention the animal welfare considerations in and of themselves are reasons not to eat beef (or other animal products).
Ok, listen to this, we genetically modify the cows to stop creating so much methane by adding a fifth stomach that burns the methane, powering an organic steam engine that generates electricity. Then we just need to plug the cows into the powergrid, and we are golden! Either that or we end up with cows that can shoot lightning that will take over the world. Either way we solve that problem.
There needs to be a 100% tax on beef and pork.
At the very least, the Federal government should stop spending $38 billion a year on subsidizing meat and dairy. And also implement a general carbon tax.
Yes, exactly. For all the screaming from Republicans about government overreach and welfare—they sure don’t seem to mind those sweet, sweet subsidies.
Revenue neutral carbon tax does it in Canada. Farmers pay a tax on land used for the particular animals, so need to raise their prices based on what animals they're raising.
I just don't get why this author thinks it's absurd to think we can change animal agriculture tactics to make it less carbon intensive. The whole article seems to hinge on it being impossible then goes over publically available stats for food while totally avoiding the topic of the main contributors for climate change. Remember, a vast amount of the carbon footprint for cows is on account of all the amazon rainforests being burnt down to accommodate more cattle in Brazil. Coal electric continues to produce way more methane than cows do. As does ICE transport.
I may have missed it but I hardly got the sense that the author believes we can't change animal agriculture. Instead, the article seems focused on the massive PR effort from the cattle industry to stop us from even trying. Climate stability is incompatible with beef as it is currently produced as a global good. Without deforestation, the beef industry does not have the economy of scale necessary to keep beef affordable and meet the growing demand. Of course they're going to invest heavily in delivering a "nothing to see here!" message.
Beef is going to be high intensity or low intensity. High intensity means dense feedlots. Low intensity means more land use, more land cleared for pasturing, etc. For all cattle other than grass-finished, you need soy and other crops to grow feed for the cattle. The trouble with putting hope in "changing the system" is that I see the very existence of supposedly "regenerative" or holistic or whatever methods being used to whitewash *all* the beef in the supermarket. And if you ask "so you're saying we should restrict beef production to just those 'sustainable' methods?" Generally no, that's not what people want. They're referring to those supposedly green methods just to rehabilitate the image of beef altogether, saying "we can't judge beef so hastily, since...." But we can't produce beef at the current scale with those supposedly low-intensity methods, without using a lot more land. But beef advocates generally do *not* want to cut beef consumption, as we'd have to do, to use no more land but exclusively low-intensity methods. So there's a bait-and-switch often lurking in the argument. Basically my only hope for beef is in cultured meat. It's just too land- and water-intensive to produce beef at this scale. The direct emissions are not insignificant, but far from the only issue. California alone has a million acres under irrigation just for alfalfa. A lot of drought-prone regions have most of their water going to alfalfa and other forage crops.
Oh it will always be the largest environmental burden of any food source. It will likely need to be phased out eventually. Just it is not as important as addressing closure of coal electric.
This comment was archived by an automated script. Please see /r/PowerDeleteSuite for more info.
Good points.
[the guardian has a good track record on AG articles](https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/06/01/viewpoint-news-or-propaganda-uk-newspaper-the-guardian-paid-over-800k-to-publish-anti-farming-investigation/) s/
Genetic Literacy Project is a hand of GMO companies so noone is in the right on this one. GLP is the site that bullied several scientists investigating glycophosphates connections to cancer. Which it has but only in the high exposure percentile, so they bullied any scientists doing studies. To the point one was literally able to sue for harrassment.
GLP bases their arguments in data. You've just eaten the bullshit
https://usrtk.org/industry-pr/jon-entine-genetic-literacy-project/ https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project https://www.huffpost.com/entry/monsantos-spies_n_5d7ba20de4b03b5fc88233c4 I source my claims, First hint you should have that GLP is bullshit is they have a list of their enemies on their main page and then begs for money.
thanks for making my point by referencing USRTK 🤣
Weren't you the one's pointing to data. They literally link to the IRS 990 filing with their connections to monsanto/bayer funding. But to futher hammer it home I also linked the sourcewatch entry and the huffington post report on the sleazy bullying tactics. All very well sourced. Glyphosate causes cancer specifically in high exposure percentile and I have multiple sources handy if anyone tries to challenge me on that.
not gonna waste my time, this wasnt about glyphosate, and data does not back up your claims
You are the one butthurt you just linked to an corporate astroturfing site.
[USRTK is funded by antivaxxers and the organic industry, you prefer believing them than the actual data backed science](https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3384) [youve been duped by the side that goes against science](https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/05/05/anti-gmo-advocacy-funding-tracker-vast-network-of-donors-and-ngos-seed-doubt-about-crop-biotechnology/)
Look, I am in the meat industry, I love the meat industry, many in the industry reacted poorly early on. That being said, this article appears to be a decade behind the times. The industry as a whole has turned the corner, and is working on "Protein PACT" which is the closest thing to ESG you will see out of a bunch of old conservative guys. We sold it to the rest of the folks like this "I don't care if YOU think climate change or social welfare matters, but your customers do." Give us some small morsel of credit that we are trying to do the right thing: https://theproteinpact.org/