Posted on 05/06/2020 7:08:20 PM PDT by MtnClimber
A renewed push to pass the PRIME Act picks up steam as COVID-19 leaves us all asking “Where’s the beef?”
The increasing possibility of a breakdown in the meat supply chain in the United States due to COVID-19 is prompting Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) to renew his push for a bill that would make it easier for small, independent slaughterhouses and meat processors to sell directly to consumers.
Large meatpacking plants across the country have shut down due to fears of COVID-19 outbreaks among workers, and less and less meat is making it to grocers and restaurants. Wendy's has run out of beef for hundreds of its restaurants (leading to many Twitter jokes about its most famous commercial).
Reason's Brian Doherty has documented how the broad shutdown of commerce is harming the world's food supply, and it's likely going to get worse. Reason food policy writer Baylen Linnekin noted on Saturday that the federal government already does not have a great track record in regulating the food industry in a way that makes it easy to stay in business. We shouldn't assume the government is going to do a good job at helping businesses reopen.
But what Massie has been proposing is legislation that reduces some of this massive red tape to make like easier for smaller slaughterhouses and meat processors to work within their own states, thereby increasing the number of businesses able to provide us with our hamburgers, bacon, and pork chops.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Please fix the stupid.
Bet there are many lobbyists keeping the red tape in place. The smaller businesses are screwed,
When this thing is over 80% of the FedGov needs to be gutted like a fish.
L
Wendy’s has run out of beef...
Where’s the beef?....
Between Wendy’s buns
“ When this thing is over 80% of the FedGov needs to be gutted like a fish.”
At least 80%.
Anything the Feds get their grubby little paws on gets effed up. My last steer got killed by a local business, quartered, hung for 8 days, I brought it home and boned it out and processed it like I do an elk when I get one. Work? Boy howdy. It was really good though. Our local processors are pretty darn good but I decided to do that one myself. Get the Feds out of the way. IMHO.
More.
At least 05%.
Keep the military, border patrol, the NWS, and national parks.
Dismantle the DOE, Medicare, Medicaid, any government subsidized healthcare, welfare, social services, DHS, TSA, and cut political pork projects.
More.
At least 95%.
Keep the military, border patrol, the NWS, and national parks.
Dismantle the DOE, Medicare, Medicaid, any government subsidized healthcare, welfare, social services, DHS, TSA, and cut political pork projects.
You can't fix stupid. - Ron White
OTOH out high hygienic standards, in food processing and elsewhere is a buttress against such things as this virus- and other threats.
Is it worth reading the article? Do they acknowledge that?
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN21P2DK
Reuters - A slew of U.S. ethanol plants have shut down as fuel demand has collapsed during the coronavirus outbreak, and meatpackers have been hit by a worrying side-effect: less carbon dioxide is now available to chill beef, poultry and pork.
“We’re headed for a train wreck in terms of the CO2 market,” said Geoff Cooper, president of the Renewable Fuels Association industry group. The RFA said 29 of the 45 U.S. ethanol plants that sell carbon dioxide, or CO2, have idled or cut rates. The U.S. ethanol sector is the top supplier of commercial carbon dioxide to the food industry, accounting for around 40% of the market, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
That has put the U.S. meat industry on high-alert. It uses carbon dioxide as a refrigerant and preservative for meat, and also uses the gas to stun animals before slaughter.
Yeah, I’m in a rural area and familiar with small processors.
Not sure they’re economically sound for urban markets.
But the larger ones do it cheaper and maybe need a big fed overwatch to keep them honest. State and local supervision may have problems.
Why don’t they just say it... UNION plants are shutting down
It may seem off subject when But the way this whole thing developed started with the Italian fashion industry areas controlled by the Chinese commies gets hit by a runaway CCWV (Chinese Communist Wuhan Virus) breakout which occurred in Wuhan China.
The politburo closed off the Wuhan area but did not warn the Italian Socialist government or the Pope with whom the Chinese government had good relations with.But certainly violated that understanding when the socialist government should have been informed and allowed to deny those Chinese workers who replaced Italians in those factories taken over by the Chinese travel to and from China particularly for their New Year while this was occurring.
Where Chinese ownership and control seem to have done almost the same here is with Smithfield Pork processing . After the Chinese were hit with swine flu which destroyed their pork industry they managed to acquire and takeover Smithfield Pork processing. When learning of the Wuhan shutdown Trump cut off China air travel with the exception of only allowing American citizens returning..But was immediately attacked by CNN and the alphabet media outlets as a racist Republican action.
There was someone around here whining about eggs not being in dozen egg cartons, "they are in 30 egg flats in a case". So? I buy 30 egg flats all the time. We buy stacks of them at work for our clients all the time. The eggs taste the same I assure you. "Well, you don't understand! The eggs are fluid eggs for restaurants!" And? I guess if youre hungry youre just going to have to forgo sunny side up and eat scrambled eggs and quiche or something fo a while. "Well, its the volume!" Honest to God, I just want to slap these people. This person has to be trolling us or is too damned stupid to be their own guardian.
"The milk is in the wrong containers! It has to be dumped! Nobody wants the school containers! Nobody wants the bags, those are for restaurants!" I guess you didn't want any milk all that badly. I don't give a damn if its in one jug or 16 cartons. I have a cardboard box and a clip to put on the hose so a bag wouldn't be a problem. I would actually prefer it that way if I could.
Is there anyone actually dumb enough to buy the "retooling for consumers" story?
This morning I saw this bullshit story over on MSN, In Minnesota, 10,000 pigs are being euthanized a day from the Startribune. Now maybe I live in a very unusual place or maybe Im missing something about both these meat articles but this just doesn't make sense. I know of 6 small custom processors in my immediate area. You can take your own animal in and drop it off in back or you can just walk up front in to the butcher shop end and buy whatever cuts you want. This is something special the rest of you don't have? I can watch an animal come off the kill floor and be processed the whole way if I really want to. Those employees that aren't cutting at any given moment are cleaning and scrubbing. These places do better work processed in a cleaner environment than the big slaughterhouse and I get what I want rather than whatever trash Walmart decides is the cut/style/packaging that the lowest denominator wants.
Why aren't all these animals just being sent to other processors? Why indeed. I think we all know why.
OK but why? Nobody wants that garbage in their tank anyway. There is supposed to be a shortage of hand sanitizer causing some companies that don’t normally make sanitizer to jump in and start using ethanol intended to fuel people. In other countries people go to the store and just buy bottles of alcohol to clean things. I just read that this virus is killed in 30 seconds by alcohol where bleach takes 5 minutes. The junk we use at work takes 10 minutes and has to be left on the surface creating a crust on everything and gets on your clothes, on the paperwork, and in the food and everywhere else. At least I know I don’t have to worry about cooties on my sandwich. It would actually be more effective if one were actually trying to sanitize a surface and likely safer to use to actually use alcohol.
How about we put the ethanol for people in people, the rest of the ethanol in sanitizers and jugs for cleaning, and gas made from cheap oil in our tanks the way any sane society would do it? “Well, it the formulas that the states require and …” Yup, right back to a problem of government not wanting to respond to the peoples needs.
I just recently read someone claiming farmers were having to dump their corn that was intended for ethanol. Where do these farmers live? Its not in the US because corn hasn’t grown here for the last 5 or 6 months. Where was it sitting during the winter that they have it now and why do they have to dump it today? Even if someone lived in an area that they could plant today then they couldn’t harvest until August at the earliest maybe September and in much of the country the reality is that it wont be until October, possibly until the beginning of November if its a wet fall. Its not like they need that storage space again soon.
These are contrived shortages. You both remember the gas shortage of the 70s, yes? First it was fuel, then the next thing you know it was supposedly sugar, then coffee, then every other thing right up until we got to a “gravel shortage” and everyone had finally had enough and cried foul. The next thing you know they are giving away 5lb bags of sugar for free with every purchase.
Little side note regarding 17 re:regulation, I don’t have to own any animals. I can just call the butcher and tell him to get one for me. If I ran a burger joint I could just call and tell him to push 6 cows through the grinder and Id come get them later, he does the rest. It would be cheaper and higher quality burger than what one buys now as “ground beef.” So the point is that its not like there is anything in the law that requires me to first go to a farmer and purchase my own animals then personally transport them to the facility. These places can scale up and regularly do so in the fall, Im sure they could find some out of work people that would be happy to come in and work shifts.
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