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Control the food, control you. #180550
02/05/2024 03:08 PM
02/05/2024 03:08 PM
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Globalists Will Use Carbon Controls To Stop You From Growing Your Own Food

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

In early 2020 in the midst of the covid lockdowns, blue states run by leftist governors pursued mandates with extreme prejudice. In red states like Montana, after the first month or two most of us simply ignored the restrictions and went on with life as usual. It was clear that covid was not the threat federal authorities made it out to be. However, in states like Michigan the vise was squeezed tighter and tighter under the direction of shady leaders like Gretchen Whitmer.

Whitmer used covid as an opportunity to institute some bizarre limitations on the public, including a mandate barring larger stores from selling seeds and garden supplies to customers.

“If you’re not buying food or medicine or other essential items, you should not be going to the store,” Whitmer said when announcing her order.

The leftist governor was fine with purchases of lottery tickets and liquor, but not gardening tools and seeds.

She never gave a logical reason why she targeted garden supplies, but most people in the preparedness community understood very well what this was all about: This was a beta-test for wider restrictions on food independence. There was widespread rhetoric in the media throughout 2020 attacking anyone stockpiling necessities as “hoarders,” and now they were going after people planning ahead and trying to grow their own food. The establishment did NOT want people to store or produce a personal food supply.

Another prospect that was being openly discussed among globalists was the idea that lockdowns were “helpful” in ways beyond stopping the spread of covid (the lockdowns were actually useless in stopping the spread of covid). They suggested that the these measures could be effective in preventing global carbon emissions and saving the world from “climate change.” The idea of climate lockdowns began to spread.

The corporate media has since lied about the existence of the climate lockdown agenda, but articles and white papers extolling the virtues of shutting down the planet in the name of climate change are easy to find and read. The globalists and their academic defenders wanted PERMANENT lockdowns, or rolling lockdowns every couple of months, shutting down most human activity and travel outside of basic production.

I have argued in the past that what Whitmer was doing in Michigan was a part of this agenda – That her garden supply ban was part of a wider goal that had nothing to do with public health safety and everything to do with stopping people from prepping. The covid controls were only meant to be a precursor to carbon controls.

This past week we have seen more confirmation of this, as a study out of the University of Michigan claims that homegrown foods produce five times more carbon emissions than industrial farming methods. In other words, private gardens could be considered a threat to the environment. The Telegraph and other corporate platforms have jumped on the story, and I believe this is cause for concern.

The study includes analysis of various gardens from individual family plots to urban and community plots and claims that “garden infrastructure” for individual plots (such as raised beds) contribute far greater carbon pollution than large scale farming. The study seems to ignore the fact that raised beds are more efficient and grow more food in a smaller space, but I doubt they really care to take these kinds of things into consideration.

The average person might be confused by this and assume the opposite is true – Wouldn’t growing foods at home be BETTER for the environment?

Not if your funding relies on portraying independent food supplies as bad for the planet.

The study is bankrolled by a host of international groups, including the European Union’s Horizon Program which lists “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” as one of its project goals. These 100 cities are then supposed to act as flagship models for the eventual carbon agenda takeover of all cities by 2050.

Such groups have billions of dollars at their disposal and focus most of that monetary firepower on climate change research (propaganda). Do I think that the Michigan study is rigged in favor of a predetermined outcome? Probably. When these studies are funded by globalist interests, their outcomes always seem to favor globalist goals. The study itself does not necessarily argue that people should stop gardening, but it does push the narrative that carbon controls are necessary, even at an individual level.

The Michigan report might seem like a meaningless footnote. However, as we witnessed last year with a study from the Consumer Product Safety Commission on natural gad appliances, these little and obscure studies are often used to justify large scale government interventions into people’s daily lives. The CPSC study inspired months of debates from Democrats in the US demanding that gas appliances including stoves be banned because they MIGHT cause health side effects, specifically in children (it turns out the study had no concrete basis for this claim).

Leftists and globalists do not care about protecting your health; they care about how these studies can be used to fear monger, thus increasing their power. In other words, if you can rig the science, then you can rig the laws.

We saw something similar to this in a UN study in 2006 which claimed that meat production contributed to nearly 20% of all carbon emissions and was worse for the environment than transportation. The study was exposed in 2010 as “flawed” (fraudulent), but for years the media and globalist organizations used its false conclusions as a springboard to demand limitations and bans on meat production in the name of saving the climate.

If you think the war on farming which is raging right now in Europe is only intended to affect industrial farms, think again. The establishment is going to try to use the man-made climate change lie to dictate ALL food production, right down to your unassuming backyard garden. And they won’t limit their efforts to the EU; they will come after American farms with the same restrictions.

This is really what the globalist “net zero” programs and 15 minute cities are all about – They are based on the idea that all human activity needs to be monitored and managed. They say it’s for the good of the planet, but the systems they want to put in place from 2030 to 2050 sound like a new digital feudalism, a society where bureaucracies track and trace and micromanage every aspect of your life. The elites benefit greatly while never proving that carbon emissions are a danger to anyone.

Why the obsessive focus on food? Because if people have their own food, then they might be more willing to rebel against further mandates. It’s really that simple.

The end game is obvious – Control the food, and you control the world. Do it in the name of saving the planet and a lot of people will even thank you as you starve them.


"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #180551
02/05/2024 03:11 PM
02/05/2024 03:11 PM
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Europe Erupts In Widespread Farmer Protests As Revolt Against ‘Green’ Policies Intensifies

Original article here.

Farmers in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Romania, and other countries across Europe are protesting radical leftist governments by obstructing major transport networks with tractors. This widespread populist movement is sweeping Europe at a time when over-regulation, taxes, and the climate change agenda threaten the livelihoods of not just farmers but working-class people and comes several months before the European election cycle kicks off in June.

Some countries hit hardest by protests have been Germany, Italy, Belgium, and France. Protests are expected to spread to Spain and Portugal.

On Tuesday, France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, promised farmers emergency funds and stricter trade controls on foreign products to guarantee fair competition.

However, that might not have been enough, as the farmer’s union in France was unimpressed by concessions offered by the French government. They encouraged their members to continue the fight.

“I’m so proud of you,” Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, head of Lot-et-Garonne department’s farmer’s association, told protesters in the south of Paris.

Bousquet-Cassagne said:

“You are fighting this battle because if we don’t fight we die.”

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told local TV station France 2 that police were preparing to defend strategic areas of larger cities.

“They can’t attack police, they can’t enter Rungis, they can’t enter the Paris airports or the center of Paris,” said Darmanin, adding, “But let me tell you again that if they try, we will be there.”

According to Armstrong Economics:

Farmers throughout the world have been protesting the increasing regulations on agriculture. The media is barely covering the story, and when they do mention it, they say that the farmers are protesting due to Russia blocking supplies from Ukraine. This is simply untrue. The farmers are protesting against over-regulation, taxes, and the climate change agenda that is making it increasingly difficult for them to make a successful living.

EU farmers’ complaints are very basic:

Out-of-control energy prices (thank whoever blew up the Nord Stream).
Disastours carbon-cutting targets.
Overall inflation.
Bureaucracy from radicals in Brussels.
Ukrainian grain imports.

The demonstrations, which could soon consume Europe, come ahead of the June European Parliament elections.

Here are scenes on the ground as protests spread across Europe:

Small farmers are upset that WEF elites such as Bill Gates, linked to the World Economic Forum, aim to reset the global food supply chain, a move that could render small-scale farming obsolete.

And discontent is quickly spreading across the West. As we noted earlier this week: “Mess In The West: ‘Army Of God’ Convoy Heads To US Border While EU Farmers Block Cities.”

Unrest in the West is a symptom that leftist politicians are completely out of touch with the common man. Quickly, queue the next crisis. Is that the eruption of war or another virus?


"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #180552
02/05/2024 05:55 PM
02/05/2024 05:55 PM
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French farmers: "Jeremy Clarkson was right."



Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #180576
02/12/2024 08:18 PM
02/12/2024 08:18 PM
Joined: Oct 2001
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Carbon Controls To Stop You From Growing Your Own Food,

by Brandon Smith

In early 2020, in the midst of the covid lockdowns, blue states run by leftist governors pursued mandates with extreme prejudice. In red states like Montana, after the first month or two most of us simply ignored the restrictions and went on with life as usual. It was clear that covid was not the threat federal authorities made it out to be. However, in states like Michigan the vise was squeezed tighter and tighter under the direction of shady leaders like Gretchen Whitmer.

Whitmer used covid as an opportunity to institute some bizarre limitations on the public, including a mandate barring larger stores from selling seeds and garden supplies to customers. “If you’re not buying food or medicine or other essential items, you should not be going to the store,” Whitmer said when announcing her order. The leftist governor was fine with purchases of lottery tickets and liquor, but not gardening tools and seeds.

She never gave a logical reason why she targeted garden supplies, but most people in the preparedness community understood very well what this was all about: This was a beta test for wider restrictions on food independence. There was widespread rhetoric in the media throughout 2020 attacking anyone stockpiling necessities as “hoarders,” and now they were going after people planning ahead and trying to grow their own food. The establishment did not want people to store or produce a personal food supply.

Another prospect that was being openly discussed among globalists was the idea that lockdowns were “helpful” in ways beyond stopping the spread of covid (the lockdowns were actually useless in stopping the spread of covid). They suggested that the these measures could be effective in preventing global carbon emissions and saving the world from “climate change.” The idea of climate lockdowns began to spread.

The corporate media has since lied about the existence of the climate lockdown agenda, but articles and white papers extolling the virtues of shutting down the planet in the name of climate change are easy to find and read. The globalists and their academic defenders wanted PERMANENT lockdowns, or rolling lockdowns every couple of months, shutting down most human activity and travel outside of basic production.

I have argued in the past that what Whitmer was doing in Michigan was a part of this agenda – That her garden supply ban was part of a wider goal that had nothing to do with public health safety and everything to do with stopping people from prepping. The covid controls were only meant to be a precursor to carbon controls.

This past week we have seen more confirmation of this, as a study out of the University of Michigan claims that homegrown foods produce five times more carbon emissions than industrial farming methods. In other words, private gardens could be considered a threat to the environment. The Telegraph and other corporate platforms have jumped on the story, and I believe this is cause for concern.

The study includes analysis of various gardens from individual family plots to urban and community plots and claims that “garden infrastructure” for individual plots (such as raised beds) contribute far greater carbon pollution than large scale farming. The study seems to ignore the fact that raised beds are more efficient and grow more food in a smaller space, but I doubt they really care to take these kinds of things into consideration.

The average person might be confused by this and assume the opposite is true – Wouldn’t growing foods at home be BETTER for the environment? Not if your funding relies on portraying independent food supplies as bad for the planet. The study is bankrolled by a host of international groups, including the European Union’s Horizon Program which lists “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” as one of its project goals. These 100 cities are then supposed to act as flagship models for the eventual carbon agenda takeover of all cities by 2050.

Such groups have billions of dollars at their disposal and focus most of that monetary firepower on climate change research (propaganda). Do I think that the Michigan study is rigged in favor of a predetermined outcome? Probably. When these studies are funded by globalist interests, their outcomes always seem to favor globalist goals. The study itself does not necessarily argue that people should stop gardening, but it does push the narrative that carbon controls are necessary, even at an individual level.

The Michigan report might seem like a meaningless footnote. However, as we witnessed last year with a study from the Consumer Product Safety Commission on natural gad appliances, these little and obscure studies are often used to justify large scale government interventions into people’s daily lives. The CPSC study inspired months of debates from Democrats in the US demanding that gas appliances including stoves be banned because they might cause health side effects, specifically in children (it turns out the study had no concrete basis for this claim).

Leftists and globalists do not care about protecting your health; they care about how these studies can be used to fear monger, thus increasing their power. In other words, if you can rig the science, then you can rig the laws.

We saw something similar to this in a UN study in 2006 which claimed that meat production contributed to nearly 20% of all carbon emissions and was worse for the environment than transportation. The study was exposed in 2010 as “flawed” (fraudulent), but for years the media and globalist organizations used its false conclusions as a springboard to demand limitations and bans on meat production in the name of saving the climate.

If you think the war on farming which is raging right now in Europe is only intended to affect industrial farms, think again. The establishment is going to try to use the man-made climate change lie to dictate all food production, right down to your unassuming backyard garden. And they won’t limit their efforts to the EU; they will come after American farms with the same restrictions.

This is really what the globalist “net zero” programs and 15 minute cities are all about – They are based on the idea that all human activity needs to be monitored and managed. They say it’s for the good of the planet, but the systems they want to put in place from 2030 to 2050 sound like a new digital feudalism, a society where bureaucracies track and trace and micromanage every aspect of your life. The elites benefit greatly while never proving that carbon emissions are a danger to anyone.

Why the obsessive focus on food? Because if people have their own food, then they might be more willing to rebel against further mandates. It’s really that simple. The end game is obvious – Control the food, and you control the world. Do it in the name of saving the planet and a lot of people will even thank you as you starve them.

If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.


"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #180733
03/24/2024 04:57 PM
03/24/2024 04:57 PM
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"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #180809
04/13/2024 05:22 PM
04/13/2024 05:22 PM
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"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #180841
04/26/2024 01:39 PM
04/26/2024 01:39 PM
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"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #181012
06/15/2024 05:27 PM
06/15/2024 05:27 PM
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Government subsidies are destroying our food diversity. Why aren't more farmers growing "heritage" grains and other crops? Blame the government.

Quote
The renowned whiskey writer Clay Risen recently recounted in The New York Times how nal t'eel, a Mexican corn varietal grown on the Yucatán Peninsula for more than 4,000 years, was saved when a local craft distillery started making whiskey with it. While a gripping and inspiring tale on its own, the resurgence of nal t'eel is also part of a much larger story arc. Over the last decade, the heritage whiskey movement has exploded—part of an even larger ancient and heirloom grain revival.

While there is disagreement on what constitutes an "heirloom" or "heritage" grain—some point to grains developed prior to World War II whereas others define them as varietals brought to the New World by immigrants—they have become catch-all terms for grains that have not undergone significant genetic modification regardless of their age. The results range from whiskey made with Jimmy Red Corn to an artisanal bakery's millet-and-sorghum sourdough loaf.

It's not just hipsters, foodies, and the health-conscious who are swapping their bleached flour for stone-ground buckwheat. The world's ancient grain market is projected to grow at a 37 percent compound annual growth rate, reaching $10 billion by 2032. As Sarah Herrington, a nutritionist at Brio-Medical, summarized it: "We're seeing a return to the traditional, over the conventional."

Yet "the conventional" is growing, not shrinking. Since the early 1990s, the acreage planted in the basic "big four" crops—corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton—has expanded. If consumers are increasingly interested in a return to old-school grain and crops, why aren't more farmers following suit?

Answer: the U.S. government.

Switching crops could mean turning down what is essentially free money.
The government subsidizes up to 60 percent of the cost of crop insurance premiums, but that comes with a catch: This and other subsidies are heavily skewed toward monoculture farming—growing a single crop on most or all of a farm's available acreage. This means less crop diversity, less experimentation with obscure grain varietals, and less sustainable and regenerative farming practices. It also increases soil erosion and the use of fertilizer and pesticides.

Modern farm policy began under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with the aim of helping struggling farmers during the Great Depression. That initial legislation applied to a specific list of commodity crops, and although the list has expanded somewhat over time, it remains limited and discourages farmers from experimenting with specialty types of grain.

"Todayʼs crop insurance, for farmers like myself raising corn, soybeans, and wheat, is generous and safe," says Doug Doughty, a grain and livestock farmer in Missouri. "It guarantees a profitable yield and revenue. At the same time, that discourages innovation into more specialty crops that could better diversify and benefit our food supply." Empirical research has likewise demonstrated that subsidies reduce crop diversification, as farmers often replace non-subsidized crops with ones that are subsidized.

We see this play out in the realm of perennial crops—defined as crops that live longer than two years and therefore don't need to be replanted annually—which, alongside heirloom crops, are key players in the modern regenerative agriculture revival. The environmental benefits of perennial crops are vast: They sequester more carbon than annual plants, limit soil erosion, and reduce the use of pesticides.

One of the most promising perennial grains is Kernza, a wheatgrass species that many see as a replacement for conventional wheat and other cereal grains. While researchers just recently made Kernza viable, its derivation from wheatgrass means its ancestry goes back millennia. Kernza lasts for 3 to 5 years, and its deep root system not only helps it pull carbon out of the air but also allows the plant to better survive extreme weather events such as droughts.

Yet only around 4,000 acres of Kernza are currently planted in the U.S.—and as agricultural economists have pointed out, it will never be able to replace traditional annual crops unless the system is overhauled. "You can't just change the crops," the University of Iowa economist Silvia Secchi told NPR in 2022. "This is a whole system that we need to modify."

That's because the current crop insurance system is tied to losses sustained annually, not losses over a multi-year span. Therefore, although many perennial grains can technically be insured, there is no ready mechanism for insuring the entire lifetime productivity of a perennial crop. Perennials also often require more up-front time and investment to bear results, which is likewise not accounted for under the current insurance program.

The repercussions extend beyond grain to other rediscovered crops as well. American hazelnuts, which some have been heralding as a replacement for soybeans in the Upper Midwest, are likewise perennials and face a similar uphill battle.

Unsurprisingly, those that benefit most from the current system—Big Agriculture and large global seed conglomerates—lobby vociferously for protecting the current system and maintaining the monoculture monolith.

"As long as you have economic protection over one crop, then it prejudicially diminishes the viability of an innovative competitor in the marketplace," Polyface Farms owner (and self-described "Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic") Joel Salatin said in 2014. In his perfect world, he added, we would "shut down the [Department of Agriculture] and let farmers rise and fall with their own innovation and the savvy of the marketplace."

Taking the opposite approach to American farm policy, New Zealand decided in the 1980s to eliminate almost all of its farming subsidies. Rather than experiencing calamity, farm productivity increased, agriculture grew as a percentage of the country's overall GDP, and biodiversity improved as fertilizer use declined.


As long as our government keeps a thumb on the scales and determines what crops our farmers should prioritize, we will miss out on the many known benefits and those yet to be discovered about more diverse grains. A new farm bill is moving through Congress now, and the debate over it will reach a crescendo in the coming weeks. It might be time to pick up a bottle of heritage whiskey—not just for relief, but to offer some solidarity to this small corner of the food world.


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #181040
06/24/2024 05:29 PM
06/24/2024 05:29 PM
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The government wants to track your steak. I'm not kidding. But,there is hope (read to the end).

Quote
The government has a long history of using tracking technology to ascertain our whereabouts, our habits, and even our preferences. From cellphones and cars to snow plows and garbage trucks, governments seemingly want to track anything that moves—or moos.

The USDA recently finalized a rule—set to go into effect in a few months—that will require all cattle and bison being moved across state lines to be tagged with radio-frequency identification (RFID) ear tags. RFID technology uses radio frequency waves to transmit and collect data by way of a system of electronic tags and scanners. The technology is best viewed as a type of electronic or remote barcode, in which scanners can read an RFID chip anywhere from a few meters away to around 100 meters away. In some ways analogous to a shorter-range GPS system, RFID can track geographic location and also operate as a system of data collection and storage.

In the context of livestock, a quick scan of an RFID tag can pull up information like a cow's date of birth, weight, vaccine records, ownership history, what farms it has been to, and what movements it has made. The USDA is justifying its RFID mandate on public health grounds, claiming that it can help trace and eradicate potential disease outbreaks among livestock, such as mad cow disease or hoof-and-mouth disease.

...

One small beacon of hope for American ranchers is that Congress appears to finally be waking up to the USDA's overreach. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) recently introduced legislation that would prohibit the USDA from implementing any rule that mandates electronic tagging technology for cattle and bison.

The USDA is attempting to find a solution for a problem that has already been largely addressed through current practices.

Fox puts it more colorfully: "Someone told me this story—NASA spent millions trying to develop a pen that could work in sub-zero temperatures and zero gravity. The Russians just used a pencil."


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #181079
07/06/2024 10:01 AM
07/06/2024 10:01 AM
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"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #181260
09/15/2024 01:37 PM
09/15/2024 01:37 PM
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Banks are being urged to stop financing livestock production. Because of climate change or something.

Quote
Over 100 climate groups are pressuring JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and other private banks to stop financing global meat and dairy companies.

Agriculture Dive Dot Com says the institutions’ lending activities undermine their environmental commitments. An open letter from groups led by Friends of the Earth to some of the world’s biggest banks calls for a halt on any new financing that expands industrial livestock production and to add requirements that meat, dairy, and feed clients disclose their climate action plans. The letter calls out the banks by name for supporting the world’s biggest meat, dairy, and animal feed producers like JBS, Tyson Foods, and others.

While food companies are a small part of the banks’ overall lending portfolios, the groups say they have a much bigger impact on the institutions’ environmental footprints. The letter says increased lending has let the world’s biggest emitters grow their operations and emissions.


Onward and upward,
airforce

Re: Control the food, control you. [Re: ConSigCor] #181290
09/30/2024 01:52 PM
09/30/2024 01:52 PM
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We're nearing the end of the "cheap burger." Among other things, the U.S. cattle herd is at a record low this year.

Quote
Italians have mozzarella, the French enjoy baguettes, Nigerians have jollof rice, and Americans have burgers and fries—and we like them cheap. Ever since the McDonald brothers first launched their vision of fast burgers at 15 cents a pop in 1948, inexpensive beef has become an American touchstone, practically a birthright along with voting and the high school prom.

These days, that’s an entitlement drifting out of reach for many Americans. In the second quarter of 2024, the average price of a fast-food restaurant burger was $8.41, up 16% from five years ago, according to food consultant Technomic’s Ignite Menu data. Even at McDonald’s, the average price of a Big Mac (no fries, no drink, just the sandwich) in June was $5.29, a 21% increase from 2019. Burgers have gotten expensive enough that low-income consumers have been coming in less frequently, driving the chain’s first sales drop in four years, it said in its last quarter earnings.

The Golden Arches has responded with deals—a value meal here, a buy-one-get-one there—and it seems to be getting traction. Other fast-food chains have followed, too. But to think the value wars are a sign that cheap burgers are coming for all is to misread what’s happening not to fast food, but to beef. The average retail price per pound for ground beef in US cities in August was $5.58 per pound, a record high reflecting the US cattle herd’s historically low numbers. The herd has been shrinking since its most recent peak in 2019, hitting a 73-year low in January.

Most of us remember 2020 for the pandemic, but ranchers will also remember it for the severe drought. When pasture for herds to graze grows harder to come by, ranchers send animals to slaughter without replacing them, shrinking herds and sending prices up. This year’s rainfall has been better, but parts of the country are still not out of the woods. Even as the costs of feed for cattle has declined, higher interest rates and operating expenses have meant that it’s still too pricey for most ranchers to get back to growing their herds, or “rebuilding” them, in industry parlance. So the number of cattle continues to fall, and the price of beef will continue to rise.

The size of the cattle herd—and beef prices—is cyclical, dependent on both market conditions and weather. First, prices have to get high enough for a producer to decide to increase his herd. Then there’s the cow’s biology, which makes for an achingly long cycle: The producer has to hold back some heifers (or breeding cows) rather than send them to slaughter. Once impregnated, cows don’t give birth for another nine months. The calves need at least a few months with their mothers and are then fed on the farm. Finally they’re sold to a feedlot, where they could remain for up to 300 days, depending on how quickly they gain weight. By the time the cow is slaughtered, it’s 30 to 42 months old. (Chickens, by contrast, are slaughtered before they reach 2 months.) Because of this lengthy process, it takes about five years for the cycle to go from its low point to its high point.

Despite the record high prices, nobody is certain the rebuild is coming. Signals from the major meat packers, which buy the cows at the feedlot stage, are mixed: Meat giant Tyson Foods said in its August earnings call that “data doesn’t support” a herd rebuilt yet, but less than two weeks later, rival beef giant JBS SA said in its earnings call that it was seeing some positive signs, with the number of young, female cows sent to slaughter down about 15%, meaning more are being held back to reproduce. Even so, JBS’s prediction for that herd-size rebound—for new cows to be ready for slaughter—isn’t until 2026. All that translates into beef prices rising higher before they start to fall, says Derrell Peel, a professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University....


Read the whole thing at the link.

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