The Trouble With BigAg

August 23, 2023 3:51 PM

Since 2020, Americans have experienced rising food prices while farm closures have ticked steadily upward. Inflation and supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic have been explicitly or implicitly blamed in the news. However, the inflation narrative overlooks a more endemic, structural problem with the industry at large. from The Cartel That Controls the US Meat Industry
posted by chavenet (9 comments total)

I am fortunate to live in a farming area. But the shrink-flation is real. There used to be 12 patties in a bag of readymade hamburger patties. Now there are 10. They cost a couple bucks more. Brisket has doubled in price.

Canned chicken has tripled in price.

Fresh chicken has given me really bad food poisoning more than once. So I don’t want to eat fresh chicken.

Fruit and vegetables are fairy - tale luxuries. We have been mainly eating frozen. Canned goods on top of being high priced are often dented.

If you order canned goods like canned chili online the cans on the outer sides of the box usually are ok, in the middle, you find the dented cans, often BADLY dented cans.

When I was young there were lots of small, family farms, lots of small ranches. Now it is those huge places with the cows arse deep in their own manure. We have rampant e.coli, salmonella and listeria. The bird flu.
The swine flu.
E.coli and salmonella are in vegetable and grain products. Humans are the vector. They work the fields with no bathroom or hand-washing facilities. They end up urinating and defecating in their pants. It’s absolutely gross what agricultural workers endure.

The whole system is terrible.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 4:38 PM on August 23, 2023 [12 favorites]

We haven’t noticed this too obtrusively since we have been eating increasingly less meat, especially beef, but I was surprised the last few times I made a point of comparing it after reading a few stories like this. Our local Safeway prices used to be well under what the local farmers market or creamery charged, and now they’re surprisingly close. The rake-off is eye-watering since they have economies of scale in their favor and the difference quite noticeably is not going into quality.
posted by adamsc at 5:01 PM on August 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

What's wild to me is that prices at my local food co-op haven't changed much. Our family coincidentally went vegetarian in Jan 2020, so I don't shop meat, but cheap factory eggs at Aldi soared to $5/dozen, while the local hippy or Amish eggs at the co-op stayed at $5-6 like they had been for a while.

P.S. Fuck big ag, this is one area where we can relatively easily take back the means of production, and now is a great time, because their stuff isn't even much cheaper than the much better alternatives.

Turns out smaller, less exploitative food systems can't race to the bottom price as fast but they have resilience that helps them better withstand shocks. Get ready for more of this as climate change gets extra fucky in the next decade, and support your local food as you can!
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:30 PM on August 23, 2023 [11 favorites]

There has been substantial inflation in food cost over the past few years, no doubt. However, I was fucking astounded at the extent to which the store that may as well be the official Florida state grocery outlet that has recently been expanding into the rest of the Southeast has been using the situation as cover to blatantly price gouge when I finally broke down and started shopping elsewhere because it was becoming so absurd.

Shopping elsewhere and taking better advantage of coupons and sales my grocery bills are within some semblance of reason after taking overall inflation into account. Plus, I don't have to leave the house to get my stuff and it doesn't even sit in someone's hot car for several hours. Actual employees deliver it using the company's properly climate controlled truck. The promise of Webvan has truly arrived, over 20 years after it imploded.

Also, Tyson can go fuck itself. About the only thing positive I can say about them, having lived literally just down the street from their corporate HQ for some years, is that they were not busily demonizing immigrants. Exploiting the shit out of them, yes. Not so much on the riling up racist hatred.
posted by wierdo at 7:37 AM on August 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

However, I was fucking astounded at the extent to which the store that may as well be the official Florida state grocery outlet that has recently been expanding into the rest of the Southeast has been using the situation as cover to blatantly price gouge when I finally broke down and started shopping elsewhere because it was becoming so absurd.

Definitely our big chains here are just blatantly gouging on lots of things. I had been shopping at a Kroger-in-Disguise because it was my closest store; now that I've moved, my closest store is a small family-run chain, and the difference is astonishing, especially for produce.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:45 AM on August 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

I thought the problems of farmers were caused by obese people on welfare though. I just heard one singing about it.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:55 AM on August 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

Through a string of unchecked acquisitions over 30 years, Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS USA Holdings, and National Beef have gained control of roughly 85% of the total hog, cattle, and poultry processing market. For brevity, we’ll call these four meat processing corporations “BigAg” (or “the cartel”). The cartel employs about 350,000 people; "in 2020, a lobbyist was able to secure an executive order keeping meatpacking facilities open without protections for workers which resulted in COVID spreading rampantly throughout workers’ communities."

ProPublica's reported on this topic since March 2020, with several related subsequent articles; Aug. 20, 2020's begins, In documents dating to 2006, government officials predicted that a pandemic would threaten critical businesses and warned them to prepare. Meatpacking companies largely ignored them, and now nearly every one of the predictions has come true.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:44 AM on August 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

If you want to read intelligent commentary on the us food system, read Sarah Taber
posted by lalochezia at 10:56 AM on August 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Seconding Sarah Taber - who's on Mastodon: https://mastodon.online/@sarahtaber
posted by foonly at 11:43 AM on August 24, 2023 [2 favorites]