5 ms·

Do you have any links to sources or further reading material regarding this current state of affairs? It seems not entirely obvious, nor easily checked for a ca

Do you have any links to sources or further reading material regarding this current state of affairs? It seems not entirely obvious, nor easily checked for a casual reader. (Maybe that's part of the issue of why this is not a more popular topic yet.)

fsflover 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_subsidy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_subsidy
rlaabs 6y ago
I would highly recommend 'The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business' https://smile.amazon.com/Meat-Racket-Takeover-Americas-Business/dp/145164583X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+meat+racket&qid=1612652181&sr=8-1 https://smile.amazon.com/Meat-Racket-Takeover-Americas-Busin...
- refurb 6y ago
  By that title it sounds like a very objective and unbiased source!
danShumway 6y ago
> Maybe that's part of the issue of why this is not a more popular topic yet I do think it's kind of under-discussed (it's not the only thing, a lot of niche topics like this, especially around food, don't really get covered much unless they're popular). The thing is that the people who do talk about it are usually in opposition to the meat industry, so most of the articles you find online are going to be written with a pretty obvious bias. As someone just looking for more information, that might bother you or it might not. The EWG has decent stats online that are presented neutrally and that you can parse through if you're trying to dig into some of the details of how all of this works: https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total The vast majority of subsidies are towards "feed" products like corn and soy. In a lot of ways, corn's impact in particular has been a lot bigger than just on meat -- we saw a big shift towards corn-based products (including ethanol) that came as a result of this massive increase in resources towards both producing corn and researching uses for it. You can also see the impact in products like soy, which, coincidentally with being one of the second-most subsidized foods in the US, is pretty cheap in the US. If you're looking for a meat "substitute" that is actually easy to find at much cheaper prices than meat, tofu can be a very cheap replacement, at least in my experience. I'm being a little bit deceptive there, because most soy is used for animal feed, it's not like we're just throwing funds into tofu. Even there, the primary reason we're subsidizing soy is to make it easier to raise meat. But it does still have some impact outside of the meat/dairy industry. In comparison, our subsidies towards vegetables and fruits are basically nonexistant (I think ~50 million a year for "specialty crops", but I might have my numbers wrong). It's actually kind of startling how cheap fruits and veggies in the US are given how few resources our government puts into encouraging their production. If you're curious, you can also look into checkoff programs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_checkoff_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_checkoff_program) that basically boil down to a mandatory tax on commodities like beef/dairy that is then redistributed to organizations that promote those commodities wholesale, rather than specific brands. Checkoff programs are not a direct subsidy, but they raise their own set of concerns about free speech and government involvement in advertising and direct promotion of commodities that might not be in the public's best interest to be so heavily advertised. Sorry, I know that's not the same thing as just listing an easy-read casual resource, but there aren't many neutral casual resources online, at least not that I'm aware of. Because it's a niche topic, most of the explainers are being written by people who specifically want to draw attention to the problem and are writing from a vegetarian/vegan perspective. Which is what you would expect from a topic that doesn't get brought up very often, but it does mean that if you don't want to rely on those sources, you have to do a bit of digging.
mtrovo 6y ago
Kind of a tangent but Michael Pollan's books always open my eyes about these topics. In particular for this subject https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore%27s_Dilemma https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore%27s_Dilemma gives a good overview of why fast food (and all highly processed food) are so much cheaper than eating whole food. In the process you start to understand the role corn has on it and why it's the biggest crop of grain in the world.

fsflover 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_subsidy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_subsidy

rlaabs 6y ago

I would highly recommend 'The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business' https://smile.amazon.com/Meat-Racket-Takeover-Americas-Business/dp/145164583X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+meat+racket&qid=1612652181&sr=8-1 https://smile.amazon.com/Meat-Racket-Takeover-Americas-Busin...

refurb 6y ago
By that title it sounds like a very objective and unbiased source!

danShumway 6y ago

> Maybe that's part of the issue of why this is not a more popular topic yet I do think it's kind of under-discussed (it's not the only thing, a lot of niche topics like this, especially around food, don't really get covered much unless they're popular). The thing is that the people who do talk about it are usually in opposition to the meat industry, so most of the articles you find online are going to be written with a pretty obvious bias. As someone just looking for more information, that might bother you or it might not. The EWG has decent stats online that are presented neutrally and that you can parse through if you're trying to dig into some of the details of how all of this works: https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total The vast majority of subsidies are towards "feed" products like corn and soy. In a lot of ways, corn's impact in particular has been a lot bigger than just on meat -- we saw a big shift towards corn-based products (including ethanol) that came as a result of this massive increase in resources towards both producing corn and researching uses for it. You can also see the impact in products like soy, which, coincidentally with being one of the second-most subsidized foods in the US, is pretty cheap in the US. If you're looking for a meat "substitute" that is actually easy to find at much cheaper prices than meat, tofu can be a very cheap replacement, at least in my experience. I'm being a little bit deceptive there, because most soy is used for animal feed, it's not like we're just throwing funds into tofu. Even there, the primary reason we're subsidizing soy is to make it easier to raise meat. But it does still have some impact outside of the meat/dairy industry. In comparison, our subsidies towards vegetables and fruits are basically nonexistant (I think ~50 million a year for "specialty crops", but I might have my numbers wrong). It's actually kind of startling how cheap fruits and veggies in the US are given how few resources our government puts into encouraging their production. If you're curious, you can also look into checkoff programs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_checkoff_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_checkoff_program) that basically boil down to a mandatory tax on commodities like beef/dairy that is then redistributed to organizations that promote those commodities wholesale, rather than specific brands. Checkoff programs are not a direct subsidy, but they raise their own set of concerns about free speech and government involvement in advertising and direct promotion of commodities that might not be in the public's best interest to be so heavily advertised. Sorry, I know that's not the same thing as just listing an easy-read casual resource, but there aren't many neutral casual resources online, at least not that I'm aware of. Because it's a niche topic, most of the explainers are being written by people who specifically want to draw attention to the problem and are writing from a vegetarian/vegan perspective. Which is what you would expect from a topic that doesn't get brought up very often, but it does mean that if you don't want to rely on those sources, you have to do a bit of digging.

mtrovo 6y ago

Kind of a tangent but Michael Pollan's books always open my eyes about these topics. In particular for this subject https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore%27s_Dilemma https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore%27s_Dilemma gives a good overview of why fast food (and all highly processed food) are so much cheaper than eating whole food. In the process you start to understand the role corn has on it and why it's the biggest crop of grain in the world.