Climate Change and Food

First, and biggest, the good news: the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law just days ago, is a big step in the fight against climate change. Witness this very excited video detailing the bill, including the many ways it is poised to make a difference and a few, strange ways that pork barrel politics got some wins for Manchin. But also note with this Vox article that this big new policy seems to gloss over agriculture, an industry with issues.

Although the Beyond Burger hasn't been doing super well as of late, apparently failing to convince McDonalds that they should be on menus worldwide, there is still some room to be optimistic about "alt-meat." Building meat from raw (plant) materials results in less waste (i.e. animal parts), a lot of saved time waiting for animals to mature, and potentially may allow the same equipment to produce different products. 

Bottom line: Big Meat is still boss, but this fight isn't over....

NYC Congestion pricing still "coming soon"

Any policy is going to have winners and losers, though it sounds like the South Bronx is pretty much a guaranteed loser. There are a lot of cats to try to herd, but I'm impressed they're still at least trying!

Chicken in Maryland

In 2021 the chicken industry on the Delmarva peninsula produced 567 million chickens, 3 million fewer than in 2020. Still, local industry profits hit $4.2 billion which doesn't sound too bad, especially given that had to pay higher wages to workers in processing plants and higher costs for feed. 

However, the Biden Administration has taken notice of the way the industry is run, and they are trying to keep the few huge processors from taking all of the profits, as has long been done via the tournament pricing system, which pits growers against each other. In the face of those large profits (remembering that Delmarva is less than 10% of US production) the Feds imposed fines of.. 85 MILLION dollars!

That's got to be maybe half a percent of industry profits, imposed one time. 

Anyway, suffice to say I'm not too impressed. Meanwhile, an environmental group continues to complain about the many externalities of the industry, noting that the Maryland Department of the Environment inspected just 134 farms per year out of the 500 or so statewide. Of those inspected, most had some infraction found, but mostly the issues were dealt after a follow-up visit. Farms can often do a better job keeping the manure out of local waterways, but fines are rarely levied. Should they be levied more? I'm not sure: I certainly hope that not every inspection results in a fine. I do think that MDE should hire more inspectors: maybe paid for by a small additional tax on farms?