You're taking it on faith that the price of beef in the store currently reflects the actual costs of producing that beef. And that it would continue to do so if

You're taking it on faith that the price of beef in the store currently reflects the actual costs of producing that beef. And that it would continue to do so if the beef industry became even larger and more powerful. But it isn't true, current "cheap beef prices" (they are actually up a lot just now [1]) are a reflection, in part, of the public funds and public property use that are routinely donated to agribusiness. You can't tell what the cost of beef is by looking at the pricetag, and that's true about a lot of real-world products and services. You can't rely on the market to give you a signal in such cases. And you can't tell which cases are which without digging in to every one. I don't mean to pick on you, exactly, but your attitude is one I see online frequently. "I took Econ 101 and therefore I can tell which global industrial supply chains are or are not sustainable just by looking at price-tags in the grocery store." When even real economists get things wrong all the time. [1] http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=beef&months=240 http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=beef&months...