How to stop the coming meat shortage
Washington Examiner,
by
Hannah Cox
Original Article
Posted By: Judy W.,
5/3/2020 8:46:35 AM
“Where’s the Beef?” was once just a funny (yet successful) advertising slogan. But now, it could soon be an actual question on the minds of many shoppers. Amid the coronavirus crisis, some are calling attention to the coming meat shortages the United States faces as the virus continues to ravage our economy. Rep. Thomas Massie has been sounding the alarm for weeks, and the Kentucky Republican recently introduced the “PRIME Act” in an effort to address the coming crisis. The congressman is right to be concerned. (Snip) We could soon see farmers unable to keep their farms afloat, livestock killed in mass with no means to be sold, and hungry
Reply 1 - Posted by:
earlybird 5/3/2020 9:11:53 AM (No. 399230)
This “meat shortage” may be another media-created crisis.
40 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 5/3/2020 9:13:00 AM (No. 399233)
This is a great article and points out government overreach in our meat processing system.
"We could soon see farmers unable to keep their farms afloat, livestock killed in mass with no means to be sold, ..."
No. No. No. Before farmers and ranchers kill their livestock because keeping them will bankrupt them, just give all the vegans out there 30 or 40 chickens and a cow and a pig or two to take care of. Who wouldn't want to keep a nice, big Angus bull in their back yard or their front room?
9 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
earlybird 5/3/2020 9:13:25 AM (No. 399234)
(Hit submit too soon)
Stores like Costco, which has had abundant meat, began to be cleaned out by hoarders, filling their freezers, almost immediately after “Meat Shortage” hit the media...
13 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 5/3/2020 9:13:46 AM (No. 399235)
My wife and I buy our beef from a son in law farmer. Just bought a half of a steer from him. We prefer to know where our meat has been before it goes into our freezer.
17 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
oldmagnolia 5/3/2020 9:23:30 AM (No. 399241)
I have three therories; 1. since we didn't die from the virus, now they have to go after the food supply. 2. Farmers are using this to increase the price. 3. Another media created panic.
23 people like this.
Boob bait. Want to stave off any shortage of meat, or toilet paper or anything else? Open the markets, unleash the consumers, and get out of the way. But there are always politicians not wanting to waste a crisis...and here's another, using government to fix a problem that did not exist until government started shutting things down and otherwise intervening.
And, BTW, didn't PDT threaten to use the Defense Production Act to force meat packers to get to work and get that meat to the public...more nonsense grandstanding.
8 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
starboard 5/3/2020 9:43:18 AM (No. 399270)
I spoke to my friendly butcher at Albertsons. She said they just had a meeting on this matter and was confident there won't be a shortage of fresh meat.
6 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
BirdsNest 5/3/2020 9:48:42 AM (No. 399273)
Since all this started, I have seen an increase in the price of eggs. The only meat I buy is the stuff they discount at the grocery store and there has been precious little of that recently.
3 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
LadyHen 5/3/2020 9:58:16 AM (No. 399288)
My favorite local grocery with an actual butcher has been keeping customers up to date. They has had sporadic shortages of this or that meat and prices have roller coastered a bit but they have been stabalizingand really that can happen any time there is disruption. Probably hoarding will be more an issue than any shortages, as we have seen. The mind controlled TP people are stupid. That people still watch and believe the msm just mystifies me. Thinking your own thoughts is just too hard for most of America.
Ditching overbearing regulation and dumping bureaucracy is never a bad thing. All for it. It would certainly help small meat producers and processors.
14 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
EJKrausJr 5/3/2020 10:01:44 AM (No. 399294)
Bernie's wet dreams of food lines and bread lines may include beef, pork and chicken lines as well unless we get the Fed out of the food supply chain. Farmers plowing up their vegetables, potato farmers disposing of potatoes, etc. are now common. Act soon or livestock producers will be selling their livestock for dog food. Allow states (God help those in blue states) decide on how farmers can sell their produce and livestock.
8 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
franq 5/3/2020 10:03:33 AM (No. 399297)
We were in a Wally World last night and there seemed to be a good supply of meat. No TP whatsoever. But give the media time to induce a panic and it may change.
4 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
mifla 5/3/2020 10:04:16 AM (No. 399298)
How to stop the coming meat shortage? Simple. Ignore the media.
12 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 5/3/2020 10:17:12 AM (No. 399308)
#5, don't put this on the farmers. They produce the product. This is on the meat packer reps who deal with the farmers/ranchers. Look to whomever is setting the prices that we pay at the stores, and believe me, it is not the farmers/ranchers. I know several farmers/ranchers and this is not on them. They are hurting in this mess as well. Look to who ISN'T hurting and there you will be able to find your scoundrels.
I think #1 has hit on something very close to the truth here. Also, the comments about the eggs seems to be right on the money. Several million chickens have already been destroyed so far, thanks to the farmers who can't get with the meat/poultry packers to arrange a shipment.
15 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Strike3 5/3/2020 10:25:25 AM (No. 399315)
Another scare monger stirs the pot. It's "en masse" honey. At this point going without a steak a couple of times a month is old news. Many of us existed on Ramen Noodles and soup during our school years, during our first entry-level jobs and during the first years of our first mortgage and our bodies and brains are still intact. Those who did not survive that period of mandatory dieting became Democrats and still might be in the parents' basement.
I have complete faith in the nation's farmers and workers. Given another four years of Donald Trump we will arise stronger from this scam and will not be so eager to fall for the next one.
13 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
bigfatslob 5/3/2020 10:26:43 AM (No. 399316)
Our store has actual butchers processing meat daily. I buy the local processed meat (mostly pork and only ground beef) not nationally processed trucked in meats like Smithfield. In the big toilet paper scare of 2020 many shelves were cleaned out by the hoarders but were filled back up within two weeks or so. Now our stores seems to be full capacity with only a shortage of cans of beans and canned soup.
This scare articles are more added on to the Chi-com virus hoax.
6 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
planetgeo 5/3/2020 11:13:04 AM (No. 399364)
Don't you realize you're being played for suckers? Someone announces a coming shortage and all the hoarders start snatching up ridiculous amounts of meat, leaving empty shelves. It's "Toilet Paper 2.0." It's too bad there's no virus that specifically culls stupid people as a co-morbidity.
10 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
mean Gene 5/3/2020 11:30:44 AM (No. 399383)
Farmers can now legally sell cuts of beef and pork to the public in Wyoming.
All it took was a stroke of the pen by the gov.
Why not make it national?
Who needs "meat packing plants" filled with filthy immigrants who don't share our views on being clean after going to the bathroom?
13 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Muguy 5/3/2020 11:43:14 AM (No. 399399)
A few years ago, there was COOL, or Country of origin Labeling, and we could SEE where our meat was coming from, We IMPORT beef from Australia and Mexico and other countries.
The PRIME act in Congress would really help things out.
The basic economics of supply and demand are ALWAYS at work-- Gasoline prices are down because of over supply, farmers are dumping milk because the cows keep giving it and there is no market in schools to supply milk, and the prices are going up due to hoarding of meat and chicken products.
The stores had plenty of supply, just not enough time to supply shelves that were made empty by panic buying and people continuing to hoard. The supply was simply not able to be replenished fast enough.
The bigger concern should be how all this $4 trillion dollars of new spending is risking us going into hyper inflation and our dollars worth less becoming "worthless"
5 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
dst4life 5/3/2020 12:08:44 PM (No. 399425)
#13, Boy, you hit the nail on the head . . . Look at who is NOT hurting, and you will find the answer. How about we look at lawmakers and whoever are in their pockets? Lawmakers always seem to have a steady income no matter how bad things get for the average American.
8 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
hershey 5/3/2020 12:19:52 PM (No. 399450)
Keep Calm and Hunt .......
3 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
DVC 5/3/2020 12:36:29 PM (No. 399472)
De-Federalization would likely be a good thing in many cases.
4 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
stablemoney 5/3/2020 12:53:26 PM (No. 399484)
Maybe by not shutting the meat processing plants down? You could have also prevented this depression by not shutting down the economy. Instead of 19% unemployment, we would only have 3.5%. It is really amazing how just doing nothing could be so remarkably successful.
2 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
DVC 5/3/2020 1:44:19 PM (No. 399547)
The giant meat packing plants in Kansas are all strategically located far, far from any sources of American labor, no accident, a careful plan so that the only labor available would be illegals who move there to work cheaply in unpleasant working conditions. And the very small towns and sparsely populated counties are really happy to have a big company shoveling money at them in taxes, and almost certainly bribes, too.
The outputs of those plants should be identified so that we can avoid buying them.
4 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
DCGIRL 5/3/2020 2:17:12 PM (No. 399594)
Exactly #1. There will not be a meat shortage.
3 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 5/3/2020 3:42:08 PM (No. 399682)
We have a local butcher shop where I live. A real butcher owns it and he tells me that he sees no problem until the media hype a shortage of this or that meat product and people panic and load up. He cuts up the whole chickens himself, cubes his own steaks, grinds his hamburger fresh. Oh, smokes and cuts fresh bacon. It's where we get all our meat now and only go to the big grocery for the bulk stuff. Chicom owned Smithfield can GTH.
1 person likes this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
wildcat1 5/3/2020 5:19:37 PM (No. 399739)
Biggest problem is that scores of local smaller slaughter houses have been shut down since 1980 because of onerous state and federal regulations. Every hog and beef carcas must be inspected by a state or USDA inspector, not a bad thing at all. But......................over regulation has force many small operations to shut down. We used to have one of our own steers butchered every year. Had to haul him 60 miles and have an appointment at least 8 months ahead of time. The inspectors visit each local plant once a week, more inspectors is out of the question. Most small plants have limited cooling space for the carcasses. The carcasses must hang for a few days, maybe a week before they are cut up into edible cuts.
Slaughter plants are like refineries, no new ones being built. That may change with the current climate but don't hold your breath. There is plenty of beef and pork out there, but the bottleneck is the slaughter capacity. it has been that way for years.
1 person likes this.
I'm holding out for the dental floss shortage.
2 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
DVC 5/3/2020 8:52:29 PM (No. 399860)
Stock up on pasta?
Just joking. I doubt that there will be much of a real meat shortage. If there is, get the feds out of the way and I'll bet that the smart capitalists will figure it out pretty quickly.
0 people like this.
Mass hysteria again. They say "Eat your veggies" Meat runs out, eat more veggies. Every hoarder with a stimulus check should buy a compressor. Hurricane season is coming.
1 person likes this.
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The bill would give back to the states the authority to set its own standards on processing meat instead of the vast, tangled web of federal regulations most of which were put in place to satisfy special interests. It would make it easier for small meat processing companies to stay in business as well as direct-to-consumer sales.