Sorry to switch subjects, but from Steve Boyan:
I was wrong. If I had known that for every pound of beef I did not
eat, I would save anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 gallons of water, I
would have been moved.
Why doesn't a pound of beef cost more than 2500 gallons of water?
Wouldn't ADM (or whoever cares for the cow) have to pay for that much
water? To make a profit, wouldn't they have to charge more than their
costs?
Or get subsidized to overcome their losses. A few Web stats, no big
effort made to make these all fit together.
UK: Of cattle farmers' total income of £2088 million in 2003, £928
million came by way of subsidies from the taxpayer.
A new report
by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concludes that the
federal government spends at least $144 million each year managing
private livestock grazing operations on publicly owned land, but
collects only $21 million in grazing fees—for a net loss of at least
$123 million per year.
Livestock Subsidies by year, U.S. Total
| Year |
|
Livestock Subsidies |
|
| 1995 |
 |
$63,337,904 |
| 1996 |
|
$84,507,627 |
| 1997 |
|
$95,932,136 |
| 1998 |
|
$8,415,538 |
| 1999 |
|
$398,067,655 |
| 2000 |
|
$195,705,068 |
| 2001 |
|
$434,176,774 |
| 2002 |
|
$976,319,902 |
| 2003 |
|
$343,713,808 |
| 2004 |
|
$27,041,523 |
|
| Total |
|
$2,627,217,935 |
|
Programs included in livestock subsidies
| Program |
Total Payments
1995-2004 |
| Livestock Compensation Program |
$1,107,734,541 |
| Emergency Livestock Feed Assistance |
$983,735,045 |
| Livestock Emergency Assistance Program |
$165,414,024 |
| Cattle Feed Program - Nonfat Milk |
$136,704,376 |
| Small Hog Operation |
$122,136,782 |
| Livestock Indemnity Payments |
$62,519,442 |
| Livestock Relief |
$25,288,004 |
| American Indian Livestock Feed Program |
$18,972,053 |
| Emergency Feed Grain Donation |
$3,505,281 |
| Livestock Indemnity-contract growers |
$1,073,848 |
| Livestock Indemnity Prog - Authorization |
$134,539 |
|
- Most federal
public lands grazing occurs on Bureau of Land Management (92% of BLM
lands 1 ) and U.S. Forest Service
(69% of USFS lands 2 ) in the arid
intermountain West, from the Sierras in California and the Cascade
Mountains in Oregon and Washington to the Great Plains (generally the
11 western states).
- Most public lands grazing is to raise beef.
- Federal public lands supply only 2% of
total livestock feed in the United States.
3
- In arid environments, droughts are more
common than not.
- An average of 13.7 acres are required to
feed one cow and calf for one month on all Bureau of Land Management
rangelands; 4 only 2 acres are
required to feed one cow/calf for one year on farmlands in the East. 5
- As much as 79% of the nation's livestock
forage is grown east of the 100th meridian. 6
- Only 6% of livestock producers west of the
Mississippi River graze federal grazing allotments. 7
- Approximately 42%
of the domestic beef cow inventory is within an area experiencing a
moderate or more intense drought.
|
