Producers and retailers respond to consumers—to their desires, tastes, rising incomes, and, most concretely, to their actual purchases—because more customers means more profits. Yet, as the case of beef shows, the notion that demand arises from the innate needs and cravings of freethinking consumers—even for a basic need like food—is far too simplified.
Governments can shape consumer demand by declaring certain things illegal, by limiting choice with restrictive trade or social policies, by imposing differential taxes, and by setting labeling standards. They can do so through incentives, as well, by subsidizing producers to develop or expand markets, causing surpluses of grain, for example, which in turn makes grain feed a cheap way to fatten animals. Over time, this begins to define consumer tastes, turning the marbling and texture of corn-fed beef into what consumers expect, prefer, and demand in their beef. Management systems and technologies like soybean plantations, feedlots, and disassembly lines can fill markets with increasing amounts of cheap marbled beef, making supersize meals profitable for a globalizing fast-food industry. Fast-food advertisers can then market “big” and “more” as a deal, as irresistibly satisfying to the increasingly obese consumers of the world.
The consumption of meat in a globalizing world has been rising steadily for over a century. Per capita consumption of meat was rarely above 5-10 kilograms (about 10-20 pounds) a year in most traditional agricultural societies. By 1950, it had reached 17 kilograms (38 pounds) a year worldwide. Today, it’s over 40 kilograms (88 pounds) and rising, with some of the wealthiest countries having annual per capita rates of more than 125 kilograms (275 pounds). Total meat consumption is now over 260 million metric tons and increasing steadily, as people eat more and the world’s population grows by more than 200,000 every day.1
Consuming so much meat is casting ecological shadows over rural ecosystems, global water and food supplies, tropical rainforests, and the earth’s climate. Billions of animals are multiplying their numbers on industrial farms. To produce more meat more efficiently, feedlots are flooding local ecosystems with antibiotics, hormones, and animal waste. Plantations for animal feed like corn and soybeans are relying on genetically modified seeds as well as on chemical pesticides and fertilizers to ensure cheap crop surpluses. With the technical and financial assistance of multinational corporations, plantations and ranches in places like the Brazilian Amazon are clearing rainforests—hotspots of biodiversity—to increase exports of cattle and soybeans for beef consumers worldwide, from Canada to Chile to Europe to Egypt to China.
Of course, not all beef producers and governments are ignoring the ecological consequences of the cattle industry. Some governments now have eco-labeling programs for beef, and some ranchers are taking independent steps to produce beef more sustainably. Consumers in countries like the United States can now choose from among all-natural, organic, sustainable, grass-fed, and pasture-raised beef.
Eco-labeling programs are shifting ranching practices and consumer preferences in North America and Europe. Efforts are also under way to expand the capacity of developing countries to produce organic beef, by, for example, providing financial assistance to organic farmers. Together, these developments would seem to represent an encouraging market trend, yet markets for sustainable, organic, and grass-fed beef still account for less than 1 percent of total beef consumption, even in the United States, where market growth for such beef is “strong.” Overall, these markets are doing little to diminish the ecological shadows cast by rising demand for beef from industrial ranches.
Many factors are limiting the growth of these markets. Definitions of terms on eco-labels vary from product to product, confusing some consumers. More exacting standards for eco-beef have pushed its prices well above those of regular beef. With such a small share of the market, and working with relatively small herds of cattle, eco-beef producers struggle to compete with industrial farms and multinational meatpacking firms able to process far more, faster and cheaper. The large slaughterhouses don’t see any point in handling the small orders of eco-ranchers, and the large supermarkets don’t offer much shelf space for high-priced eco-beef. The average consumer is reluctant to pay twice as much for a steak with an eco-label, especially when the meaning of “organic” or “natural” or “sustainable” is ambiguous. Finally, governments are offering only token support for these niche markets, focusing instead on stimulating more consumption of industrial beef to maintain national economic growth and a healthy global economy.
In the first four cases of this book—the automobile, gasoline, the refrigerator, and beef—consumption has continued to rise over many decades as firms have modified their practices in response to regulatory reforms and market shifts. For some consumer goods, however—whale meat, elephant tusks, and seal furs, for example—it has been impossible to keep consumption rising as producers hit ecosystem limits. As the following history of the Canadian seal hunt shows, the resulting declines in economic and political power can allow counterforces—in this case, animal rights and environmental activists—far more influence over the direction and intensity of ecological shadows than for products like the automobile or beef. But, as the case of sealing also shows, such influence can quickly dissipate when commercial interests are able to enter markets beyond the reach of these activists.