Big headline in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 10: “We’re not eating enough bacon.”
Really? Every fast-food restaurant is boasting about the bacon-loaded sandwiches they offer. But the pork industry is unfortunately over-producing. Too many hogs coming out of all those Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) they’ve convinced farmers to build.
The article came from an Iowan and Progressive Populist reader, and as soon as I got it I shared it with my most business-savvy friends. One said, “That’s odd. One would think the economic laws of supply and demand would send the prices down if we were actually in a free market. I have’t noticed any rock bottom prices in my neighborhood! Oh … maybe free market rules don’t apply here …”
WSJ says pork demand is down 9% from 2004 levels. Pork Producers say they wish they hadn’t used the tagline “the other white meat” with their checkoff money. They say it sends consumers the wrong message. It implies that pork is as healthy as chicken which has long been touted as low-fat. And, the tagline persuaded hog raisers that their hogs should be skinnier, to imitate the health benefits of chicken. One consultant suggested another motto: “It’s like beef, but cheaper.”
At any rate, hog facility owners have been losing money as costs of feed and equipment rise. And that means that families are going broke and rural communities are at risk. That’s a big fear for those of us that remember when the industry broke family farmers that had been raising hogs. The industry’s incursion meant that our towns were shuttered.
What is the solution according to the pork producers? The industry is trying to make pork easier to use by supplying grocers with half-cooked bacon and other cuts that can be finished with a minute in the microwave. They are recommending pork farmers go to fatter hogs, like in the olden days. And they are hoping to export more pork, as export was one of the main ways the corporations built up years ago when China’s pork production was hammered by rampant disease in their facilities. Mostly, they’d just like consumers to want more bacon on our already bacon-laden sandwiches.
So will we see US hog facilities shut down, following the shut-downs of poultry facilities in the lower midwest? You might remember that, last winter, thousands of CAFO hens were euthanized when processors quit business suddenly. “I got a call from the live production manager at that point and time—I think it was around 7 o’clock that night—stating that the state would be coming in the next day to depopulate my birds. No reason why,” an Arkansas grower told a TV interviewer.
Whether you love chickens or simply tolerate them, the thought of seeing a flock trapped in one end of the metal barn and sprayed to death with poison chemicals is heart-wrenching. Not to mention the expense to the farmer of cleaning up and of losing your livelihood overnight.
Here’s a side note we don’t often see when discussing confined animal systems: The manure is taken up by farms that pride themselves on their organic certification. Yeah, you read that right. Organic farms depend on poo from confined animal feeding operations. Sometimes the manure is composted. Other times, it’s spread on the fields in a raw state. If there’s a rain, the poo goes into the creeks. That’s true of poo from poultry and hog facilities alike. So not only is the CAFO industry threatened, but organic growers are concerned about their inputs.
And then there’s the taxpayer. According to Environmental Working Group, the hog industry has sucked up almost $50 billion in USDA subsidies for livestock operators since 1995. EWG’s analysis finds the USDA provided $49.6 billion in payments to support livestock operators between 1995 and 2021, including more than $11 billion in livestock disaster assistance payments during the COVID pandemic and during worries about disease spreading in the livestock facilities. We’ll see more of it if avian flu makes an impact on dairy farms.
In this industry, subsidies are plentiful. Not only are there subsidies to help producers modernize with new equipment, lights, fans, pumps and the such, but there are subsidized grains available for feeding.
The USDA also provided nearly $1 billion to offset the effects of former President Donald Trump’s trade war with China between 2018 and 2020.
If you’re wondering how those payments stack up with other USDA payments to industry, like, for example, the folks making fake meat products like Impossible Burgers, EWG says that since 2018 the USDA has spent less than $30 million to support plant-based and other alternative proteins that may produce fewer greenhouse gases and may require less land than livestock.
Dedicated vegetarians and vegans may be puzzled by the efforts to create “alternative proteins” but here’s another question for you … aren’t commercial efforts supposed to make money instead of sucking up tax money?
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2024
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