Economic Downturn Is Good for Cows!
It seems that the current economic downturn may be good for cows! Today the Journal Star in Lincoln, Nebraska reported that the “economic downturn may continue to diminish the demand for beef.” Here in Nebraska, that may seem like bad news for farmers but for vegans it seems to give us a bit of hope that people aren’t consuming as much beef as they were last year. The industry believes people are buying more chicken than beef since it tends to be cheaper and people are watching their pennies these days. The statistics – while still staggering – have improved for cows.
The US Department of Agriculture National Statistics Service states that the US inventory of cattle was down 7% in October of this year as compared to October of last year. They expect the same decline in November. Yet lets keep in mind that the US cattle inventory is still 11 million. The article said that less cattle are leaving feed lots. It seems that even in cattle country they don’t want to say that the cows are leaving feedlots for the slaughter house. Yet that is exactly what they implied. So I’ll say it a little more straight forward for you.
In October of last year, 2.44 million cows were slaughtered in the US. In October of this year, 1.81 million cows were slaughtered. That’s 630,000 cows that escaped slaughter this October as compared to last October. That’s a lot of cows! It makes me want to do a happy dance for them! Yet the reality is the cows are probably just lingering around in feedlots until the demand for beef goes back up. If they are lucky, perhaps they get to continue roaming fields, eating corn until they are sold to feedlots.
So what happens if cows exist (for production) but yet there is not enough demand for their flesh in the US? Well I would love to think that people would stop producing as many cows and look at other crops they could raise on their land instead. But we Americans are stubborn. People that raise cows see that as their livelihood and perhaps it’s too hard to change something if that’s the way it has always been done. So they get good ol’ President Bush to push foreign countries like Korea to begin buying US meat.
You see Korea banned the import of US beef a little over a year ago because they were scared of mad cow disease. Well I guess President Bush convinced them that mad cow disease is not a problem … much like the beef industry has convinced the American public that mad cow disease isn’t a problem – even though cows are not tested for mad cow disease. Doesn’t that seem odd? How can you assure people there is no danger if there is no testing to validate that? Anyway … I digress … as a result, South Korea was the largest importer of US beef in September. Imagine that. And they can sell American beef for 30-40% less than their native beef.
So while I’d love to do a happy dance for the 630,000 cows that were not slaughtered in October as compared to last year, I think the reality is … slaughtering will go up if we can continue to export the beef to foreign countries. I wish I could have deduced a happier ending for these cows. Wouldn’t it be great if they could all go to pasture and live out their lives with a warm barn, food, water and humane care?
I at least take pride in the fact that I am not contributing to this horrible industry. As everybody prepares for Thanksgiving with hams and turkeys … I couldn’t be happier to have a highly prized little Tofurkey waiting for me in the fridge!