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That's exactly why. Our, now, limited beef is exported because it's insanely high quality and we import cheap crap. Beef producers in LatAm are essentially slave labor for JBS who makes extraordinary margins on selling beef to Walmart etc.

Meanwhile, we are losing (I think) 1400 ranches a year, probably more, even as cattle prices are at an all time high.

As to you other question, cattle ranching hasn't been the largest land use for decades. Might have been before 1973 when Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butts made his famous "you will farm commodity crops fence row to fence row" speech but no longer. It's all corn, soybean, wheat, etc.

It's sad.

inpc 3mo ago 💬 1

Cheers, I saw an infographic recently saying beef ranches made up the largest mass of landowners in the US. Wasn’t sure if it was correct.

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Nunya Bidness 3mo ago

I suppose that may come from historic ranches with massive land holdings but only have enough livestock to get the tax write-offs. Therefore it "looks" like ranching is the majority of land use.

It really was the case that ranches were the largest land use industry. But since the introduction of the CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) in the late 60's early 70's (formally defined by the EPA in 1976) that animal land use has all but died. And it's not good for soil but that's another discussion entirely.