All the handouts Big Meat gets

And despite all the freebies being put into the system I understand that rump roast is pushing about a dollar a bite, these days.

The federal government allows livestock grazing across an area of publicly owned land more than twice the size of California, making ranching the largest land use in the West. Billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies support the system, which often harms the environment.

As President Donald Trump’s administration pushes a pro-ranching agenda, ProPublica and High Country News investigated how public lands ranching has evolved. We filed more than 100 public record requests and sued the Bureau of Land Management to pry free documents and data; we interviewed everyone from ranchers to conservationists; and we toured ranching operations in Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Nevada.

The resulting three-part investigation digs into the subsidies baked into ranching, the environmental impacts from livestock and the political clout that protects this status quo. - ProPublica

Apparently antimicrobial resistance isn't that big a deal

Talk about Big Ag capture

Last May, the United Nations (U.N.) released the first draft of a global plan to tackle antibiotic resistance that aligned with a call from world leaders’ expert advisors to take “bold and specific action.” That included a commitment to reduce the use of antibiotics used in the food and agriculture system by 30 percent by 2030.

But when those leaders (met at the U.N. in September) to adopt the Political Declaration on Antimicrobial Resistance, that concrete goal and others (were) missing from the latest draft.

After months of negotiations and edits to the proposal, these ambitious—and likely effective—commitments have been replaced with a toothless target: to “strive to meaningfully reduce” antibiotic use in agriculture. Now, experts and advocates are concerned that this new, vague provision, among other weakened commitments, will be included in the final declaration…

U.S. officials were at least partially responsible for weakening the U.N. declaration’s commitments on animal agriculture. - Civil Eats

Big Meat and Big Dairy spend pittances on cutting emissions

They actually spend considerably more on greenwashing.

Global meat and dairy giants are investing just a fraction of their revenues into cutting emissions despite being among the world’s largest polluters, according to new estimates.

Company spending on advertising outstripped that on low-carbon solutions, the report by campaign group Changing Markets Foundation found, as corporations ramped up attempts to win consumers over with their green credentials.

The meat and dairy sector – responsible for over 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions – has come under increasing pressure in recent years to tackle major climate harms...

None of the companies in the report had targets to cut emissions that aligned with guidance from UN experts.

The report found that the sector failed to take action on tackling emissions, while also spending millions on marketing sustainability claims. Companies have seen a spate of greenwashing allegations in recent years, with multiple firms forced to pull misleading ads – including Brazilian meat giant JBS, which last year was ordered by the U.S. advertising watchdog to stop making “net zero” claims. - DeSmog

Big Meat buys off academics

This has been well-known for a while, but there's new documentation out there.

Due to limited public funding for academic research, industry-funded studies on food and agriculture are common. And while researchers often strive to avoid bias and funding does not always impact research quality, evidence suggests industry-funded studies are more likely to produce results that reflect well on the funder.

In the paper, Viveca Morris and Dr. Jennifer Jacquet reveal a broader pattern of how the livestock industry, which has long had close affiliations with land-grant universities, has infiltrated universities to block climate scrutiny. The researchers trace the origins, funding, and political function of the “corporate capture of academic institutions”—especially focusing on the CLEAR Center, founded in 2018, and AgNext at Colorado State University, founded in 2020. As the authors argue, these leading academic centers wield their academic credibility to “maintain the livestock industry’s social license to operate.”

“They’re conducting industry-funded public relations and communications campaigns on climate change issues that benefit their agribusiness donors,” said Morris, the executive director of the Law, Ethics & Animals Program at Yale Law School. This effort extends far beyond industry-funded research to more actively shape policy, effectively acting like a lobbyist through frequent testimonies and meetings with policymakers, among other strategies.

Even if this is legal, “having a university—without transparency, without even telling the public that an industry donor is involved—acting as a PR arm of an industry group is impossible to justify with the university’s mission,” added Morris. - Civil Eats

Big Meat/Dairy had a big presence at COP28

I understand that they're going to look out for their own interests. But in the bigger picture their influence was likely baleful.

Lobbyists from industrial agriculture companies and trade groups have turned out in record numbers at COP28, which this year has a strong focus on tackling emissions from the food sector.

Attendees are present from some of the world’s largest agribusiness firms – such as meatpacker JBS, fertiliser giant Nutrien, food giant Nestlé and pesticide firm Bayer – and powerful industry trade groups.

Meat and dairy interests are especially well represented with 120 delegates in Dubai, triple the number that attended COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

Overall the analysis of the delegates list by DeSmog shows that the total number of people representing the interests of agribusiness has more than doubled since 2022 to reach 340...

The findings of the UN’s climate science body the IPCC show that the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement cannot be met without climate action on food. - DeSmog

Big Meat copies Big Oil propaganda techniques

And on the public dime, no less.

This technique of using statements that are technically true but omit crucial information and therefore are misleading, is called paltering — and it’s an old favorite of the fossil fuel industry.

In fact, it’s not the only tactic the (National Cattlemen's Beef Association) has borrowed from Big Oil. Increasingly, as NCBA and other agribusiness trade associations like the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action try to convince the public that animal agriculture is sustainable, they are turning to the fossil fuel industry’s tried and true playbook for greenwashing.

Like fossil fuel trade associations, these agribusiness trade associations are financing and promoting the work of third-party academics; fomenting uncertainty and doubt in cases where the evidence is already clear enough to act upon; and using slick PR and ad campaigns to present the industry as part of the solution to climate change, rather than a contributor to it.

At the bottom of each of NCBA’s “Beefing Up Sustainability” ads is a logo with “Beef Checkoff” written on it. This logo marks the biggest difference between the fossil fuel industry’s PR machine and that of animal agriculture: The animal agriculture industry’s efforts to minimize their products’ climate impact are paid for from a pot of public funds to which all beef and pork farmers and ranchers are required to contribute. - DeSmog

What should be done about Big Meat

Trenchant.

President Joe Biden has declared war on Big Meat. Yup, Biden’s war. The president pinky swears new rules and a billion dollars in new funding will somehow end decades of what amounts to a meat monopoly in the beef, pork and chicken industries.

In announcing the plan, Biden noted, “Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation. That’s what we’re seeing in meat and poultry industries now.”

...Biden acknowledges that Big Meat has for years put its collective thumb on the meat scale to cheat ranchers, farmers and yes, all of us, at our local grocery store meat counter. And the president believes it's high time to do something about it...

But like presidents that have gone before (most recently Barack Obama anybody?) Biden's plan as introduced in January falls short. Way, way, WAY, WAY short.

Because Biden's plan at the moment would not break up Big Meat. - Investigate Midwest