Food Price Inflation!
There has been alot of news lately about the price increases in basic food. All this is occurring as the government tells us that the economy is bouncing back and that inflation is staying low. I challenge you be observant and think about what is going on. The Fed is printing money like there is tomorrow. It just comes out of thin air and paper. The government inflation index no longer includes food and oil (gasoline & diesel) because they are “too volatile.” We are going to have to use our heads and discover the truth, because there is no one in the popular media that will tell us the truth.
What we are seeing here at the farm level is both an increase in basic commodities such as grain, hay, dairy, and cattle, which is good if you are selling. Unfortunately cattle eat hay and grain so their cost of feed has risen dramatically. Also our fertilizer, fuel, and repair costs are skyrocketing.
Everything is relative and it is a simple matter of INFLATION. On everything except probably your wages. We also have hired employees. We are trying to adjust their wages upward which is an increasing cost to us.
I don’t mean to be negative–sorry.
We have approximately 2 cows in our freezers now. We are holding last years pricing on them. They will be gone shortly. Our new butchering season is starting this month and our prices will increase. We have to do it in order to stay in business. We want to be your source of quality food for a long time to come. Being sustainable means having a profit. We are doing all we can to be efficient and contain costs.
We thank you for your loyal support as we strive to bring you the cleanest, most nutritious food available.
Interview
An ISU student recently asked me a few questions to help him on a paper he is doing. Here are the questions and my answers. It may give you some insight into my thinking.
“Thank you for your help with my paper! As I said, I have a few questions for you so I can compare your operation against the factory-farmed industry. I’ll try to keep it brief, since I’m sure you have lots to do besides answer questions you’ve probably answered many times before.”
1) “What made you decide to get into raising pasture-fed beef?” I have a very high level of interest in quality food. I have an underlying belief that we really are what we eat and that quality and nutritional value matter to our health in the long run. I would like to be a grower and provider of quality, healthy food. I do not believe that Cargill, ADM, Monsanto, Syngenta, Tyson, Swift and the few other corporations that control our food supply really care about anything beyond the short term bottom line.
2) “Is it profitable or even feasible for a rancher to finish his own cattle on his own land without sending them to a feedlot?” This is a complex question, but the short answer is yes. High levels of government subsidy to the grain industry have made it possible to feed cattle grain that is priced well below the true cost of production. Cheap fossil fuel, cheap labor also mask the real cost of most food, beef in particular. Since a small producer like myself can set the price of his finished product, it gives him some control over profitibility–providing he can find enough consumers willing to pay the asking price. Another thing to consider is that the feedlot phenomonen is fairly recent–since 1950. Prior to that all the beef was pretty much grass fed and grass finished.
3) “Who does your processing? Does being outside the feedlot industry make it harder to find a processor?” We use a small Utah processor that is fully USDA certified. He is so backlogged I have to have butchering dates booked 7-9 months in advance. He is subject to all the same regulations as the Swift plant just 20 miles away from him. The costs of this regulation are incredible. The economies of scale and the technical expertise of the workers is also a factor. I suspect the cost to process one animal in the Swift plant is 1/4 or less of what our cost is. We pay about $450 per head just for processing and packaging. This adds an immediate $1 per pound of finished packaged product.
4) “Do you feel that there will be more opportunities for operations like yours to succeed in the future, or do you think it will be harder?” I would like to know the answer to this question as well. In the current political climate it is getting harder very fast. I do not expect much change in that until consumers of food get involved in the political process or until enough of them realize that they are actually voting with their dollars when they buy food. If you buy cheap food, you are voting for the infrastructure that brings that food to you.
5) “Since you are no doubt the best at making this argument: What is the difference in price, quality of the finished meat, and treatment of your herd versus what we’re going to find at the big grocery stores? Any other comparisons you would like to make?” Easy question first: there is no comparison in treatment of the animals. We are very respectful, patient, and caring with the animals. On our farm the animals are in open spaces, new pastures, and clean feeding areas as much as possible considering weather conditions. We allow them as much freedom as is possible to be what their instincts tell them to be.
In terms of quality products, the adage of getting what you pay for is pretty true. Even in the grocery store you will see different price points for the same cuts and grades of meat. Are you familiar with USDA grading criteria? A large part of the criteria is based on fat content. The best grade is Prime, followed by Choice, and Select. It is virtually impossible to get Prime grade beef in a grocery store. All of this grade is commited to the restarant trade. It is very expensive to produce. You can get this at places like Omaha Steaks, Allen Brothers, and Ruth’s Cris steakhouses at insane prices.
The stuff that is available at most folks level will grade Choice or Select. Unfortunately the USDA grades do not reflect the type of fat in the meat. True grass finished meats are much higher in Omega 3 fatty acids and Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) fats as opposed to the high Omega 6 fats present in feedlot beef. Current research suggests strongly that high Omega3 and CLA diets are much healthier than Omega6 based diets. This can only be achieved in beef and dairy products that are grass based. Even small introductions of grains foul up the cow’s rumen balance and change the final fat content quickly and drastically. Having said all this, generally grass finished beef is priced much lower than USDA Prime, but slightly to moderately higher than USDA Choice. Most well grown grass finished beef will grade high Select or Choice. (By the way, farm raised fish that are fed high grain diets, also lose all the dietary benefits attributed to wild caught fish.)
Update on S510–Food safety bill
Click on this link for an update. http://www.naturalnews.com/030789_Food_Safety_small_farmers.html
I’m afraid the horse is out of the barn and we are trying to close the door a little late. Will this lame duck congress never end?
The New Food Safety Bill
I have been urged to make some comments regarding Senate bill 510 which last week was passed in the senate with some republican support. Turns out it was an illegal bill because it called for some new revenue to be raised. Revenue bills can ONLY originate in the House. This week the house passed a version of the bill and sent it back to the senate, so the senate can vote on it again.
You can reference this bill numerous places, but here are 2 recent articles: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/12/food-safety-bill-clears-house/
http://www.naturalnews.com/030672_Food_Safety_bill_FDA.html
I have a few comments as follows:
1. Instead of being a nice clean food safety bill, it has now been attached to a spending bill…pork, pork, pork ( and not the edible kind)
2. How is the FDA going to police food that originates outside the U.S.? We are already only inspecting 5% or less of the food shipments coming into this country after the shipment is already here. How is the FDA going to inspect all the commercial packing houses, farms, and processing facilities in the whole world? The very idea that the FDA can protect us from food contamination from all sources is beyond imagination. (Stupid?)
3. Who wrote this bill? Who is in favor of it? Follow the money and power. The government supporters are those who were voted out in November. The industry supporters are the very large food processors and corporations. Why would they favor a mountain of new paperwork? Because they already have the lawyers in place to deal with it and they can spread the cost over millions of dollars of product. The smaller competition will be dealt a lethal economic blow. They are livid about the so called “Tester” amendment that exempts small producers from the paperwork burden of the bill. If we at Brady’s Beef and Brady’s Plant Ranch have to meet all of the requirements suggested by the bill it will probably force us out of business because our costs will go so high that you folks won’t be able to afford our food anymore.
4. We are concerned about food safety. We are concerned about our customers being healthy and wanting to come back to us for more food. Believe me, we want safe food too, because we eat it as well. A massive government bureacracy us not the solution. Cheaters and short cutters will always find a way to get around the inspectors. Integrity, hard work, knowlege, and transparency (customer farm visits) are the real solutions to having safe food.
If you see this in time, please urge your congressional delegation to vote no!
Challenge to your thinking about eating
One of our chioropractic Doctor customers has published a number of interesting articles that will challenge the way you think about how your eating habits affect your health directly. It is worth a read and some consideration. Here’s a link http://www.drkratka.com/Your_Health.php
He also gives us a mention by name in his blog at http://www.drkratka.com/blog/?cat=8 . I thought that was pretty cool.
The National Cow Herd
I have been following in recent weeks one of my favorite author/publishers, Allan Nation of the Stockman Grass Farmer magazine. He indicates that the national cow herd in terms of numbers is at the lowest level since 1950. Set that piece of information against the increase in human population in the United states over the same time period. I don’t know the exact specifications, but it is at least a 150% increase. Is there a disconnect here or am I missing something? Yes, the missing piece of the puzzle is that we are importing an alarming amount of our food, including grass fed beef, from overseas. Here in the wide open spaces of the West we do not think about how many cattle it takes to feed a nation. Add to this the demographic of the average age of cattle ranchers in the US. It is about 60. Live cattle prices are good right now and it is pretty tempting for a 60 year old rancher to sell out and retire. At the national level we are creating a very wide open door for the Brazilians, Canadians, Argentinians, New Zealanders, and Austrailians to walk through. And they are taking advantage. If you have concerns about our gigantic oil imports, think about what things will be like when we depend on foriegn countries for our next meal. Support your local farmer and rancher. Allow him enough PROFIT to be truly sustainable and attract a new generation of farmers and ranchers.
School lunch–what’s in it?
One of my loyal customers recently sent me this article;
http://www.naturalnews.com/028905_school_lunch_beef.html
It verifies some things I had learned from other sources. Our kids and grandkids get as much as a quarter of their diet at school. Can any of you remember real home cooking at school lunch? I can, but I’m pretty old. You will have to decide how to handle this issue, but I know when the kids come to my house they have clean, home grown meat, fruit, and vegetables to choose from. Unfortunately, we still have a sugar addiction problem. We need to work on that one.
A View
Even though it’s late October, we still have some green grass thanks to a mild stretch of weather. Here’s the view from my deck this past week.
Tomatoes?
Some of you know we also run greenhouses. This time of year some of them are full of vine ripe tomatoes that taste like a tomato should taste. We do monitor what is available at the grocery store and this fall we have been appalled to find out where the store tomatoes come from. Thanks to the USDA for finally requiring country of origin labeling. Even during the height of tomato season here in our area, almost all tomatoes in grocery stores are coming in from Mexico. There are a few hothouse hydroponic tomatoes coming from Canada. The only domestic tomatoes I could find in the displays of the major grocery stores come from a huge hydroponic facility in Arizona. Some of our small local grocers have had half bushel tomatoes from Utah. Where will our food come from when the trucks can’t run for a few days?
Please….support your local (and I mean LOCAL) farmers.
2 Years and Grazing
Well Folks, it has been 2 years this month since we launched Bradys Beef. The website is not quite that old yet and my blogging has been pathetic. What we have concentrated on is producing the BEST beef product in the country. Karen and I are pretty happy with the results of that focus. We eat our beef every week and still comment on what great flavor it has. We cannot eat beef at a fast food joint any more. That stuff is pathetic. There is no comparison to great, clean, grass fed beef! This is not even mentioning the great health benefits of grass fed.
An added Plus is how great it is for the animals. Look at our pictures. The cows love this kind of salad bar.