And local. I was just talking with a local friend yesterday. She was telling me with great pride about her 5-year old daughter's involvement in slaughtering and butchering a steer on their small farm. I asked her how many steers they slaughter each year and if they could raise more if they wanted given the price of beef skyrocketing. They could do more, but all of the government regulations stand in the way of making it worth the effort.
This is just another example of government getting in the way of individuals and picking winners and losers. There is a reason that there are only 4 major meat processors in America, and you only have to look at the money they spend on lobbying politicians to understand how they got where they are today.
You can’t sell ranch beef without the USDA stamp of approval and the cost of a meat inspector in house that you pay for.
The alternative is to sell the cow, let the rancher take it to the community abattoir and you buy finished beef paying for the cow, the butchering and packaging and pick up your approximately 41% of the on the hoof weight to put in the freezer. If I don’t go to the sale and get a calf to fatten, this is what I do. It works out to about $5 a lb for finished beef at current prices of about $1.35 on the hoof.
A lot of people are not able or resistant to this process.
We have a new tribal abattoir. I’ll be interested to see how that works out and how heavy the thumbs on the scales are.
Butchering beef it a messy business by the way. Only 41% to 44% goes in the package. The rest, well, you gotta do something with it all.