Historic meeting between largest ag, cattle groups points to level of concern over markets
Faith Livestock AuctionRepresentatives at the closed-door meeting included the Livestock Marketing Association (LMA) that represents the nation s livestock auction markets.
STURGIS, SD – Decades of political infighting among the nation’s cattle organizations may be at turning a corner. If nothing else, the fact that representatives from these organizations sat across the same table, in the same room, to talk about the same concern, is nothing short of history-making.
Representatives from six of the largest ag and cattle industry groups met recently to discuss the price imbalance in the cattle supply chain. In the past, each of these organizations have responded to one market crisis after another (what the trade is now calling black swan events) with different proposals and policies – effectively fragmenting any message being brought before federal agencies and Congress.
A new book describing the events leading up to the Beef Checkoff’s implementation and outlining a vast number of happenings since then has caused quite a stir.
Livestock journalist Leesa Zalesky teamed up with former Cattlemen’s Beef Board Communications Director Diane Gumaer to produce a comprehensive textbook style publication that takes the reader through a timeline of events beginning with the rise of Thomas Wilson, a meat packing giant and one of the founders of the American Meat Institute, and ending with details about the checkoff referendum drive and controversial political statements made by the Beef Checkoff’s main contractor, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The 230 plus pages of “A Buck A Head, The Beef Checkoff: Did Greed, Envy and a Thirst for Power Hijack Beef Research and Promotion?” include information from dozens of meat industry leaders past and present.
By Mike Dorning
Eleven Madison Park, a top Manhattan restaurant, is going meatless. The Epicurious cooking site stopped posting new beef recipes. The Culinary Institute of America is promoting “plant-forward” menus. Dozens of colleges, including Harvard and Stanford, are shifting toward “climate-friendly” meals.
If this continues and the Boston Consulting Group and Kearney believe the trend is global and growing beef could be the new coal, shunned by elite tastemakers over rising temperatures and squeezed by increasingly cheap alternatives.
“Beef is under a whole lot of pressure,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale University’s Program on Climate Change Communications. “It was the shift in market forces that was the death knell for coal. And it’s the same thing here. It’s going to be the shift in consumer tastes and preferences, not some regulation.”
The meat industry is doing exactly what Big Oil does to fight climate action washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.