Seldom has there been a more memorable advertising campaign than the one Wendy’s launched in 1984 when senior citizen Clara Peller patronized a competitor’s hamburger restaurant, looked at their burger and exclaimed, “Where’s the beef?” Robert Mitchum and Sam Elliot memorably voiced the “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner” series of commercials. Lately we’ve seen the rise of meat substitutes and plant based diets that seek to make beef obsolete.
The United State’ Department of Agriculture reports that the average American ate 224 pounds of red meat and poultry, including 58 pounds of beef, in 2020. Plant based “meats” currently account for less than 3% of “meat” sales and only about 5% of Americans are vegetarians. There’s all this woke talk about red meat being bad for a person. Truth be told, it’s meat that’s made us strong and tall. Red meat is a great source of Vitamin B 12 which helps to make DNA and keeps nerve and red blood cells healthy. Red meant is a source of zinc that keeps the immune system working. It also is a primary source of protein that builds strong bones and muscles.
Farmers, particularly those in meat production, are under attack. When I served in the legislature property taxes were a major issue and especially for farmers. Those taxes are due no matter what happened on or to the land the year before. Was there a drought? Did tornadoes or hail devastate the crop? Did some pest or disease ravage the harvest? Cities like Sioux Falls keep growing putting pressure on bordering farmers to sell out. No matter how frugal, accomplished and savvy a farmer is Mother Nature can destroy their livelihood or foreign competition can diminish their income.
We need farmers. In 1930 there were 2 billion people in the world and each American farmer fed four of them. In 1950, world population rose to 2.5 billion and one American farmer was feeding 73 people. In 2020 there were 7.8 billion people and every American farmer fed 155. The population of the world continues to grow but acres under cultivation diminish and the number of people involved in agriculture continues to fall. In 1950 there were 5.6 million American farmers with an average farm size of 205 acres and about 1.559 million acres of American land devoted to agriculture. In 2020 the number of agricultural acres dropped to 915 million with just 2.1 million farmers now with an average farm size of 444 acres.
Meat has become the latest battleground in the culture war. Trendy restaurants in places like New York City are now touting the fact that they are meat free. The food website Epicurious.com has announced that it will publish no new beef recipes from now on. It is estimated that worldwide beef production is responsible for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions bringing the environmentalists into the debate on the side of PETA and the vegetarians. This combined with the space needed to produce beef and other meats along with the pressures of urbanization seeking to gobble up farmland for home and other development means that agriculture is constantly under siege.
Most people eat three meals a day. That food comes from someplace, raised and processed by someone and it’s not the grocery store. Eating meat is natural, just observe Mother Nature in action. Farmers should be thanked, not picketed or picked on. Agriculture should be protected and government should be looking at ways to reserve land for farm production in the same way we preserve land in our national parks. PETA thinks we shouldn’t butcher animals. On the other hand ecologists think we shouldn’t let cows live, because they’re bad for the environment. I don’t want to live in a world where I can view beef cattle only in a zoo. I want to continue to see meat on my plate in some way, shape or form every day.