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Comment by chrismckleroy | Hacker News Reader

It’s extremely tough to compete with a subsidized industry. A burger should cost $45, not $6, but with incentives, this is the reality.

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+1 you are correct, the subsidies given to the beef industry are absurd given the externalities of cow farts, water usage, etc.

I don’t think that beyond burgers are very healthy but my wife and I eat them at least once a week anyways. I like a maxed-out burger with the ‘works’ without having animals die for my eating pleasure. When I do occasionally eat real meat, I prefer no feed lot beef over pork or chicken because I understand that chickens and pigs live miserable lives while cattle get to live outside and graze.

The environmental impact of "cow farts" and "cow burps" is largely a myth.

[citation needed]

Also, it wouldn’t matter anyway: the climate impact of raising so many and feeding them carbon intensive grain is bonkers.

Well it's not a myth - but it is relatively minor compared to - say fossil fuel based power generation. Methane output is well documented - about 1lb a day for dairy cows and about half that for beef cows - without mitigation from additives.

> absurd

I'd go as far as to say it's evil.

The subsidies given to the plant industry are absurd given the externalities of obesity, diabetes, soil depletion, etc.

If burgers cost $45 you’d see an explosion in cattle farming. That would put the value of a cow over 6 figures. All the crypto miners would be buying cattle at that rate.

No, burgers would cost $45 because cattle farming would be unsubsidized and very expensive. It wouldn't just be a random $40 tax on burgers, that's obviously counterproductive.

I think the point is that $45 is a made up number to push a point. An unsubsidized burger would obviously not cost $45.

Edit: OP clarified with a source below that it would be closer to $15

Making up numbers doesn't seem like the best way to prove a point.

Welcome to the internet

It may not be the best way, but hyperbole is an established rhetorical device.

No, the high cost would start with the cattle ranchers. And since the consumer simply would not pay $45/burger, the demand would fall to almost nothing. Cattle ranchers would decide it wasn't worth doing.

It would start further up the chain with commodity farmers providing the feed.

Ok, true. But regardless of where it starts, there would not be one spot where one part of the chain was making some huge profit. Thus, it wouldn't be as the parent poster suggested (for the feed producer or the cattle rancher).

It's not like there wouldn't be any more cattle ranchers. If say a subsidy on cattle production were removed today, the ranchers would refuse to sell to restaurants and distributors at the low price they do today and agree on some price they can break even at. Anywhere offering burgers would have to do it at a much higher price to break even. Many less consumers would likely choose to purchase them, decreasing the demand for burgers, causing a decrease in demand downward until things balance out.

Related would be the conflicting effects on supply of less economies of scale vs being able to utilize only the most efficient means for production (e.g., only the places most fit for it would be producing cattle, meaning that the marginal cost would be lower than in the previously utilized high cost areas, although this wouldn't be sufficient to counteract the original shock, it might help balance the other effects.)

No, because that's the quoted increase in price assuming the same profit as today. That is, that's the actual production cost of the meat give or take a few percent. Today much of that production cost is payed by the US government or local state governments through subsidies, water rights etc.

Note: i have no idea if the $45 is realistic, but the principle is there - much of the production cost of meat is payed by the state. The price of meat would increase if this practice stopped because without any increase in profits.

That's someone's opinion of the actual price, based on their opinion that the "water rights" ought to be more expensive because they think it would produce change they happen to agree with. In their opinion it ought to be a lot more expensive in other ways too.

But despite their opinion, no, it isn't that expensive. That sort of analysis heavily relies on telling you what you want to hear, and expecting that you won't dig into the analysis and realize that if you applied the same standard to everything else in the world you'd get absurd results all over the place.

Sure. But the point is still that this kind of cost increase would not result in cows becoming more profitable, by definition.

I believe the implication is that if burgers cost $45 there would be a lot less demand. Its not like McDonalds would suddenly have 10x revenue from $45 Big Macs.

No, for a couple reasons. The way a burger would get to its true cost is by imposing true costs upstream. If cattle ranchers actually had to pay true costs, their profits wouldn't be higher. Indeed, a $45 burger would cause a drastic fall in hamburger demand, causing a net decrease in ranchers.

Subsidies are keeping cow COGS artificially low. Removing them would increase the cost to raise a cow; selling it for more money does not necessarily lead to more profit. This is the difference between gross profit and net profit... and we're not even taking into account what the market is willing to pay for a burger in the first place.

Sure, but also many of the agricultural ingredients in the "fake meat" are subsidized too.

Perhaps not to the same degree, I'm not sure, but worth pointing it out when claiming only one is a subsidized industry.

Plant production is also heavily subsidized in the US [1], so I don't see how this is relevant.

[1] Soybean Subsidies in the United States totaled $44.9 billion from 1995-2020 - https://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=soyb...

https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...

70% of that is for livestock feed.

That’s because cows eat soy meal, which is inedible to humans. The economic demand for soy is almost entirely human consumption - they just give the by-products to cows because they can save a few cents by not throwing it away.

That is completely false.

The numbers may vary, but any credible source you are going to find will show that the vast majority of soy is grown for animal feed.

https://ourworldindata.org/soy

Yeah, by mass. Look into the actual dollar numbers. It’s not economically viable to feed human-edible soy to cattle. There are much cheaper food sources. Cows just get the scraps (which outweigh the human-destined product). It’s not grown “for cattle” in the sense that cattle have essentially zero effect on the amount of soy that gets grown. https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/soy

This isn't true at all. The majority of soy produced all over the world is feed grade soy which isn't destined for human consumption.

Other than that I just can't find any sources that corroborate what you say. Every single source I could find that has actual numbers contradicts your statement.

Take the US for example

Just over 70 percent of the soybeans grown in the United States are used for animal feed, with poultry being the number one livestock sector consuming soybeans, followed by hogs, dairy, beef and aquaculture. The second largest market for U.S. soybeans is for production of foods for human consumption, like salad oil or frying oil, which uses about 15 percent of U.S. soybeans. A distant third market for soybeans is biodiesel, using only about 5 percent of the U.S. soybean crop.

from https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...

> This isn't true at all. The majority of soy produced all over the world is feed grade soy which isn't destined for human consumption.

Yeah because that’s how soy beans work dude. I think there must be some miscommunication here - the majority of the harvested soy bean is physically not palatable to humans.

Perhaps you are misunderstanding what “70 percent of the soybeans” means. 70 percent of the harvested soy material is not salable to humans. It’s called “soy meal”, look it up. It’s not like if you count all the beans that get picked, 70% of them go to cows. Each harvest is mechanically separated into its component parts and shipped to different consumers, and only a minority of the mass is suitable for oil production or direct consumption.

No, this is not about the percentage of harvested material. I’m having trouble believing that you are having this exchange in good faith, so I’m gonna end this here.

And just so we don’t end this discussion with misinformation I’m gonna leave a final quote here:

About 85 percent of the world’s soybeans are processed, or "crushed," annually into soybean meal and oil. Approximately 98 percent of the soybean meal that is crushed is further processed into animal feed with the balance used to make soy flour and proteins.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170112075924/http://www.soyate...

Have a great day!

Literally just google “soybean meal” and you’ll understand what they’re talking about. I feel like I’ve explained this pretty thoroughly. I can’t get my head around how you feel the need to conflate percent mass with percent quantity. Is there some language or conceptual barrier here?

So, has anyone ever thought about why our food supply is so heavily subsidized by the government? Attacking food subsidies is, essentially, saying, I don't want a safety net for our country in case something goes haywire in our food production network.

Instead of attacking their existence, wouldn't it be a better idea to attack how they are unfairly applied to existing structures rather than new, less environmentally harmful options?

As someone who raised cows and now routinely buys beef directly from the rancher—care to explain this? Unless you are trying to say that ag-use land tax credits are subsidization?

Edit: OK, I saw the article you linked. I guess in more rural areas this is something we never saw: I've known people who are smaller produces of beef/pork and never saw a dime of this money yet I pay less per pound than most people do in the store.

Can't be sure where you are, but in the Netherlands there were limits on amount of manure (which has various soil and air pollution effects) that were surpassed by dairy farmers, resulting in EU penalties, resulting in NL having to find a way to lower overall pollution... resulting in temporary stoppage of all new building construction and permanent reduction of max speed limits from 6-19h (from 120 to 100 max).

So the people have ultimately given up some things, ergo subsidising the farmers.

Its a cost of corruption but its marketed as a commodity industry wide cost of production.

So enormous herds of cattle in the desert in CA owned by extremely politically connected ranchers will get enormous subsidies resulting in all this "Big Macs should cost $45" stuff.

Meanwhile I live in a civilized area that gets near five feet of rain per year. The cows reproduce and eat infinite free grass and water. Essentially all I pay my organic farmer buddy for is his labor, everything else is rounding error. His land is geologically unsuitable for factory style farming so there's no opportunity cost. I pay less than $3/lb live weight and some pittance to his buddy the butcher to process and freeze my half cow every year or two. Short of massive government intervention its hard to imagine how he'd go out of business; he's not getting any subsidies to be taken away.

I suspect the future is going to be much less level and much less equal. If you live in an area where infinite free water falls from the sky, even the poor people are going to have a high-ish standard of living. If you live in a desert... maybe not so comfortable of a life anymore... Note this also applies to plants, not just meats.

$45?? I could have expected double, but not 7.5x. Do you have a source?

I’ve raised ruminant animals without getting subsidized by the government. Meat does not cost $100/lb or whatever you’re imagining.

Care to explain or add sources on this?

Reference: https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cogn...

I overestimated; we should be paying 3x more for meat than we do at retail.

Yes, the government subsidizes corn and soy. That doesn't mean that alternatives cheaper than the unsubsidized price of these inputs couldn't be found. If subsidies are removed, innovation may follow.

There are also cases where the government restricts crop production.

http://sites.gsu.edu/us-constipedia/wickard-v-filburn-1942/

https://thecounter.org/biden-administration-farmers-conserva...

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