The real question is why have we been a net importer of beef well before 1989?
Discussion
Isn't the national dish hamburgers? Just going on Nostr alone, you folks eat a lot of beef... And correct me if I'm wrong, isn't beef farming the largest land use in the country?
I'm assuming it's like much in US economy, American's have a high standard of living so it's cheaper to import from places with lower living standards.
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.
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.
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.
Broken incentives and over regulation in the industry.
And the price noise introduced by futures traders who may have "engineered incentives" placed upon them by third parties.
We eat a zillion pound per capita
We're pigs