Ezra Klein says meat should not be cheap:
Part of the problem with price signals is that we're not always sure what they're signaling. Cheap meat signals, to many, a good deal. But the cheaper your meat, the more brutal the conditions the animal was raised in. It's cheap to raise chickens in boxes, cheap to cut off their beaks so they can't peck themselves. It's cheap to never let your cows roam, cheap to feed them corn feed, cheap to force them to adapt to a fattening, subsidized diet that their bodies reject and deal with the consequences through antibiotics.It's pricey, by contrast, to give animals room to roam, to feed them a healthful diet that doesn't force early maturity, to raise and slaughter them humanely. It's pricey to raise food on things that are recognizable as farms, and to make your energy and transportation practices sustainable. In the same way that gas is too cheap because the price doesn't include the associated environmental harm and long-term costs, meat is too cheap, in that the price ignores the environmental harm, the land-use opportunity costs, and the cruelty that often goes into "cheap" food.
I'd say meat isn't cheap; we've just shifted the costs.
the land-use opportunity costs
I'm finding it hard to believe that isn't priced in somehow, in mortgages or leases. There's not a ton of demand for high-rise luxury condos built on land occupied by feedlots.
Indeed, the human body doesn't need anywhere the amount of protein (especially animal protein) that Americans on average consume.
"The reality is that Grains and vegetables are also expensive. If people are forced to eat less meat, they will be forced to eat processed foods and sugars, not grains and vegetables."
Grains, insofar as they are primarily used to feed livestock rather than people, are expensive because of market distorting agricultural and energy (ethanol) subsidies, and with so many acres of grain producing land going into these other activities, the cost of grains go up. Along with sugar, we effectively subsidize foods that are really detrimental to human health, driving up our health care costs. Of course, ADM and Monsanto have much better lobbyists than, say, Flying Pigs Farm.
Rob,
"There's not a ton of demand for high-rise luxury condos built on land occupied by feedlots."
I think his point is that if we raised those cattle with some reasonable space to be animals, there wouldn't be 'feedlots', and the space, required, would be immense..
Well, the subsidized grazing in the west is certainly mispriced.
Well, the subsidized grazing in the west is certainly mispriced.
OK, maybe, but 1) what's the highest and best use for the swaths of National Forest devoted to grazing 2) doesn't subsidized grazing mean the cattle are more likely to have the free-range grass-fed lifestyle that Ezra is talking about? Ending the subsidy might mean "better" meat pricing, but it might also mean less roaming grazing.
if we raised those cattle with some reasonable space to be animals...
But as our gracious hostess indirectly points out, many (perhaps most) cattle are already raised in exactly that way, and only put on the corn-fed antibiotic diet for a few months before slaughter. (I can't speak for other animals). And it's not like we lack for relatively flat, unoccupied land with grass growing on it.
Overall, it occurs to me that Ezra is simply saying that meat production has externalities. This is not earth-shattering insight.
This pretty much covers it:
http://www.pcrm.org/magazine/gm07autumn/health_pork.html
I can't bring myself to see the "cruelty to animals" as a negative externality on par with environmental costs.
Replace "meat" with "most consumer goods" and "feedlots" with "Chinese/Burmese export factories" and don't you have at least a parallel with the morality of overseas manufacturing?
If I had a magic wand, I would eliminate all subsidies to all food products, but I won't delude myself into thinking that will much change the way people eat.
In the case of meat products, the externality we seem to be discussing is the miserable life given to the animals. Some want to extend this externality to the emotional distress suffered by those concerned with animal welfare. In other words, the talk about external costs in the normal, economic sense is misplaced. We are discussing an ethical issue.
Life is more pleasant when you don't question your food.
...fattening, subsidized diet that their bodies reject...
I would imagine it's just the "fattening" part their bodies are rejecting. The subsidies are far more likely to offend their sense of fair play.
benschon,
with this: "Replace "meat" with "most consumer goods" and "feedlots" with "Chinese/Burmese export factories" and don't you have at least a parallel with the morality of overseas manufacturing?"
seeing that Vietnam exports far more 'consumer goods' to the U.S. than Burma, I'd substitute them..
Past that, yes, I think there's an easily workable parallel between the two systems..
YW catches it with: "In other words, the talk about external costs in the normal, economic(read: Financial -ed.) sense is misplaced. We are discussing an ethical issue.
I'd say meat isn't cheap; we've just shifted the costs.
I thought "pithy quote" was only used in sarcasm, but nope, I stand corrected. And I'm not being facetious: this might be the best single line I've come across in the blogosphere. We can spend pages discussing externalities and ethical issues, we can care or not care; but whatever our position, the undeniable factual core is contained in those few words up there.
Congrats, Megan: masterful!
Devoting more land to grazing means more errosion, more fencing in of land, and more elimination of "pest" species that interfere with ranching (also lower albedo and less CO2 sequestration if I remember correctly). High-density livestock operations are in part a reaction to restrictions on grazing practices and pest control strategies, neither of which is currently optimal and both of which remain hot-button issues in areas where ranching is common.
I know I have different priorities than Megan, but I'd much rather relieve pressures on wolf and prarie dog populations than increase them, even if some cows which exist for no purpose other than their ultimate slaughter for food get to enjoy better living conditions.
Also, I second Rob's sentiment that this isn't an externalities issue, it's an ethics issue. I don't see the treatment of livestock as an ethical issue, so the shift away from the negative environmental externalities of grazing is an example of the market working from my perspective. Both feed and grazing are obscenely subsidized when neither should be and the usage of antibiotics for livestock should be subject to an excise tax to reflect the negative impact on resistance, but the lower cost and lower land use requirements of high-density livestock operations vs grazing seems win-win from my PoV. Simply because the later cost more doesn't mean it is because of uninternalized externalities.
Yancey and Max have already mentioned it, but I'll try to put it a different way -
As much as it might appeal to libertarians and economists, you will never get much support for the notion that cruelty should be taxed or priced higher.
Some will say that we shouldn't practice such cruelty at all, and be offended at your supporting the Big Cruelty industry by legitimizing the practice with formal taxation. Others don't care about the cruelty, and won't like you doubling the cost of their food. Either way, not many will agree to treat this as a price signaling or externalities problem.
I second Rob's sentiment that this isn't an externalities issue, it's an ethics issue.
That's Yancy, not me. The only thing I add to this discussion is time spent in National Forests and the attendant skepticism about land use opportunity costs.
I think that Ezra’s confusing the concept of a “negative externality” with “things that make Ezra sad.”
"I know I have different priorities than Megan, but I'd much rather relieve pressures on wolf and prarie dog populations than increase them, even if some cows which exist for no purpose other than their ultimate slaughter for food get to enjoy better living conditions."--MattXIV
somehow, this was missed the AP wire:
"In July 2002, a coalition of conservation groups petitioned the FWS to list the white-tailed prairie dog as a threatened or endangered species under the ESA. The white-tailed prairie dog occurs in Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. In November 2004, the FWS determined that the petition did not contain sufficient evidence to warrant a full status review for the white-tailed prairie dog. A range-wide conservation assessment is currently nearing completion and should be available in early 2006.
In February 2004, a coalition of 70 organizations and individuals filed a petition with the FWS to list the Gunnison prairie dog under the ESA. The distribution of the Gunnison prairie dog is four western States (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah). In December 2004, citing the FWS’s refusal to consider federal protection for the Gunnison's prairie dog, a coalition of conservation groups sought help from a federal court and filed a lawsuit, which requested that the courts to intervene and force the FWS to prepare a 90-day finding. The results of the finding are expected to be released by the end of 2005.
Manual/Handbook Sections Affected: None.
Coordination: Please provide a single formal written response from each State that consolidates information from your respective Field Offices. Please forward this information to the attention of the Group Manager, Fish, Wildlife and Botany (WO-230) by the deadline above.
Contact: If you have any questions, please contact Cal McCluskey, Senior Wildlife Specialist at (208) 373-4042 or Eric Lawton, Wildlife Biologist at (202) 452-7760.
Signed by: Authenticated by:
Edward W. Shepard Robert M. Williams
Assistant Director Policy and Records Group,WO-560
Renewable Resources and Planning
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/regulations/Instruction_Memos_and_Bulletins/national_instruction/2006/im_2006-053__.html
to say that we are subsidizing an activity that is destroying that which we are subsidizing ..novel
http://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Dog-Empire-Saga-Shortgrass/dp/0803226047
Requesting relief for pressures on prarie dog populations is like issuing an impassion plea on behalf of locusts. They spread and multiply no matter what your interest in them, and also carry plague as a party bonus.
Well, it all depends on whether they're endangered locusts.
I'd say meat isn't cheap; we've just shifted the costs.
Well, but any effort to artificially regulate the meat and poultry industries to create more "pleasant" living conditions for animals we're only going to kill anyway would only introduce massive government rent-seeking and micromanagement. An army of inspectors would have to be hired, phone books' worth of regulations written. And who is to say what a chicken or a cow finds pleasant? Who decides how much territory constitutes "free range"? Some bureaucrat in Washington? Or the farmer himself, who knows his own business?
The fact of the matter is that animals raised in pre-industrial society are generally treated much more brutally and less kindly than those in the clean, compassionate, modern facilities of the first world. They're slaughtered painfully and frequently maltreated. This is just another excuse for a massive new federal bureaucracy.
Am I getting this schtick down yet? Maybe I need to make a few macros for Hayek quotes.
If there's something terribly wrong with the 'organic' or 'free range' standards, then perhaps we could use a new standard. But I don't see why that standard should be compulsory, except that factory farming tends to create antibiotic resistant bacteria. I never understood why we tolerate farmers giving huge amounts of antibiotics to livestock to bulk them up, when actual human beings need to get a proscription before they can take the stuff.
What I'd like to see is a tax on antibiotics that humans use, so there's some incentive to find alternatives to give to animals.
brooksfoe--
that's fine schtick, and those macros would be cool, too..
here are two of the better ones..
"...if we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
--F. A. Hayek
"However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as "the most anti-social and evil of all passions."
--F. A. Hayek
http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/F.a.-Hayek/1/index.html