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The "Backlash" to Plant-Based Meat Has a Sneaky, if Not Surprising, Explanation (sentientmedia.org)

submitted 1 year ago by usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml to c/green@lemmy.ml

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2674486

TL;DR: the meat industry's misleading messaging campaign + lobbying

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[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In the U.S. prices for meat are artificially brought down through subsidies. I searched around and saw that in 2015 the cost of beef was brought down to roughly 1/6 the cost.

If we subsidized plant based meats like that they would be less than half the cost of beef. That would bring more people to eating it (not everyone, but many) and that should in theory reduce emissions for all those supplemented purchases.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

1/6

If you're interested, please read my reply to someone else here. Subsidies are not direct to ranchers or meat costs, and applying them to meat retail prices is disingenuous. Many subsidies are actually paid by the farm industry, even ranchers (only benefitting Big Ag), and so actually increase meat prices

I buy meat from a butcher, from a ranch that provides most of its own feed in grass and buys the rest cash (I use feed for my example because feed subsidies are one of the biggest... unfortunately, those go to a small number of megacorporations only). They benefit from zero subsidies, but have to pay for some of those subsidies whenever they sell beef. I pay within $1/lb of Grocery Store prices.

Of course money is ultimately zero sum in its way, but it's arguably grains and vegetables that might take some of the heat if those subsidies were removed. Why? 44% of farmer income is feed subsidies: the government buying grain that is often grown in fields that won't grow anything else anyway. This keeps grain costs down (for obvious reasons) but also fills farmer margins so they aren't forced to raise prices on other crops.

So yeah, 1/6 is true, and 100% unusable data.