It's hot and humid here in Detroit. One of my favorite things about living in the Midwest during the Summer is the hazy heat that gives way to incredible thunderstorms like we experienced this morning. I love that you can see them rolling in from distance, and as they bring their freshness and relief to the productive land and those that depend upon it.
This past week it's been in the low 90's with high humidity, but I think that pales in comparison to the conditions the US faced in Brazil a few days ago. It wasn't quite as warm there, but the humidity was much higher. I'll admit that I am a casual soccer fan. I can identify most of the superstar players and prominent clubs in the Premier League, La Liga, and Bundesliga. However, I typically am only viewing during international competition. And, as an American, I feel like I've missed the biggest party in the world for most of my life when I watch the World Cup. In the male age group below me, 18-24 year-olds, soccer ranks second only to football in popularity in the US. It's growing constantly. And, as we live in a global culture, and soccer rules the world in terms of sport, it makes sense that the US would begin to get interested. We're not the best at soccer, but we want to be. We want to be the best in the world at everything, and this got me curious about how the US stacks up against some other countries in terms of agriculture.
It's pretty easy to find this data, as the USDA keeps up on much of this info, and it provides some great graphics to understand global production as well. (Check out this map!) We export a lot of crops, and we import a few. But as the Urban Cattleman, I was curious about beef. Recently, due to drought, record low numbers of cattle, and rising production costs, the price of beef to the consumer has risen dramatically. In fact, the cost is up 76% since 2009. It's expensive. It's always been expensive. Over the years, we've mitigated much of that cost through streamlining the feedlot process and creating technologies that allow us to provide more beef more efficiently. Because of this, and some positive marketing campaigns like beef checkoff and "It's what's for dinner," beef has moved from a luxury item to an everyday staple. That's not likely to change, even with the rising cost relative to pork, chicken, and other meat alternatives.
Just today I read an NPR blog commenting on the quiet reintroduction of lean, finely-textured beef (otherwise known as "pink slime") into supermarket ground beef in order to mitigate costs. Sometime next year the US will become a net importer of beef, a position we haven't been in since the BSE (Mad Cow) scares of 2004. This time, however, the issue isn't that foreign countries won't buy our beef. We don't have the beef to supply our own demand. We simply can't replenish the supply quickly enough to prevent this reality. So, where is this beef going to come from? Well, much of it will come from Canada and Mexico, from where we already import a significant amount. This beef is imported as live stock, and processed in USDA inspected facilities. However, the current system will not successfully halt the rising prices of beef. The fear is that a sustained increase in price will force consumers to change habits and switch to cheaper meats. This is a major problem in agriculture, and not only for beef producers.
In this country, cows eat corn. The statement has been made that "Corn is King," and this isn't far from accurate. Corn drives the US economic system. It is involved in food, fuel, plastics, and many other industries. However, a large amount of corn grown in the US goes to feeding cows. If this outlet for the corn market were to dry up, through a decreased demand from consumers for beef, many corn producers, who operate on slim margins, may not economically be able to continue to grow corn. I'm not trying to be an alarmist. We're not going to break the system because we don't have enough cows. The system always corrects itself, but rising costs of beef can directly lead to long term rising costs across the economy as a whole. If I'm a farmer without a profitable outlet for my product, why would I continue to grow it?
So what is the solution? The real catch-22 in the beef-cost-problem is that when prices are high, there is an incentive for producers to sell their product instead of increasing herd size. This will eventually price beef out of competition in the market. Beef producers can be their own worst enemies in this sense. The only way to decrease beef prices permanently is to increase supply. But, when it's more economically beneficial to sell cattle than to keep them, it's hard to justify the latter. My fear is that producers will do what they always do in agriculture. They will price themselves out of competitiveness in the market, and this diminishing demand will hurt them in the long run (This always happens.)
For those of you who know that it isn't as simple as I've presented it above, good for you. I'm glad you are aware of where you're food come from. I'm glad you are aware of the interdependence of producers, markets, consumers, and everyone in between. I'm glad you understand that the stability of our food system depends on the few who understand its complexity. Thank you to the few who make the system work. But for those who only just realized that your steak cost double what it did a year ago, I encourage you to do a bit more research into the why the US agriculture industry is the envy of the world. Though it has problems, it provides safe, inexpensive, and healthy food choices to your neighborhood everyday. We may not win the World Cup, and we may have a shortage of cows this year, but we win the agricultural world cup everyday. I'm sure the World Cup fans appreciate that, even if they don't realize it while their eating loaded nachos and drinking a Coors Light this afternoon,
This past week it's been in the low 90's with high humidity, but I think that pales in comparison to the conditions the US faced in Brazil a few days ago. It wasn't quite as warm there, but the humidity was much higher. I'll admit that I am a casual soccer fan. I can identify most of the superstar players and prominent clubs in the Premier League, La Liga, and Bundesliga. However, I typically am only viewing during international competition. And, as an American, I feel like I've missed the biggest party in the world for most of my life when I watch the World Cup. In the male age group below me, 18-24 year-olds, soccer ranks second only to football in popularity in the US. It's growing constantly. And, as we live in a global culture, and soccer rules the world in terms of sport, it makes sense that the US would begin to get interested. We're not the best at soccer, but we want to be. We want to be the best in the world at everything, and this got me curious about how the US stacks up against some other countries in terms of agriculture.
It's pretty easy to find this data, as the USDA keeps up on much of this info, and it provides some great graphics to understand global production as well. (Check out this map!) We export a lot of crops, and we import a few. But as the Urban Cattleman, I was curious about beef. Recently, due to drought, record low numbers of cattle, and rising production costs, the price of beef to the consumer has risen dramatically. In fact, the cost is up 76% since 2009. It's expensive. It's always been expensive. Over the years, we've mitigated much of that cost through streamlining the feedlot process and creating technologies that allow us to provide more beef more efficiently. Because of this, and some positive marketing campaigns like beef checkoff and "It's what's for dinner," beef has moved from a luxury item to an everyday staple. That's not likely to change, even with the rising cost relative to pork, chicken, and other meat alternatives.
Just today I read an NPR blog commenting on the quiet reintroduction of lean, finely-textured beef (otherwise known as "pink slime") into supermarket ground beef in order to mitigate costs. Sometime next year the US will become a net importer of beef, a position we haven't been in since the BSE (Mad Cow) scares of 2004. This time, however, the issue isn't that foreign countries won't buy our beef. We don't have the beef to supply our own demand. We simply can't replenish the supply quickly enough to prevent this reality. So, where is this beef going to come from? Well, much of it will come from Canada and Mexico, from where we already import a significant amount. This beef is imported as live stock, and processed in USDA inspected facilities. However, the current system will not successfully halt the rising prices of beef. The fear is that a sustained increase in price will force consumers to change habits and switch to cheaper meats. This is a major problem in agriculture, and not only for beef producers.
In this country, cows eat corn. The statement has been made that "Corn is King," and this isn't far from accurate. Corn drives the US economic system. It is involved in food, fuel, plastics, and many other industries. However, a large amount of corn grown in the US goes to feeding cows. If this outlet for the corn market were to dry up, through a decreased demand from consumers for beef, many corn producers, who operate on slim margins, may not economically be able to continue to grow corn. I'm not trying to be an alarmist. We're not going to break the system because we don't have enough cows. The system always corrects itself, but rising costs of beef can directly lead to long term rising costs across the economy as a whole. If I'm a farmer without a profitable outlet for my product, why would I continue to grow it?
So what is the solution? The real catch-22 in the beef-cost-problem is that when prices are high, there is an incentive for producers to sell their product instead of increasing herd size. This will eventually price beef out of competition in the market. Beef producers can be their own worst enemies in this sense. The only way to decrease beef prices permanently is to increase supply. But, when it's more economically beneficial to sell cattle than to keep them, it's hard to justify the latter. My fear is that producers will do what they always do in agriculture. They will price themselves out of competitiveness in the market, and this diminishing demand will hurt them in the long run (This always happens.)
For those of you who know that it isn't as simple as I've presented it above, good for you. I'm glad you are aware of where you're food come from. I'm glad you are aware of the interdependence of producers, markets, consumers, and everyone in between. I'm glad you understand that the stability of our food system depends on the few who understand its complexity. Thank you to the few who make the system work. But for those who only just realized that your steak cost double what it did a year ago, I encourage you to do a bit more research into the why the US agriculture industry is the envy of the world. Though it has problems, it provides safe, inexpensive, and healthy food choices to your neighborhood everyday. We may not win the World Cup, and we may have a shortage of cows this year, but we win the agricultural world cup everyday. I'm sure the World Cup fans appreciate that, even if they don't realize it while their eating loaded nachos and drinking a Coors Light this afternoon,