Meatonomics (40 page)

43
. Incidentally, there is some disagreement among commentators over whether certain subsidies, known as decoupled payments because they are made regardless of production levels or commodity prices, influence farmers. If these subsidies don't actually influence farmers' decisions to grow feed crops, then they wouldn't keep feed crop prices low, which means they wouldn't help livestock producers in the ways described. For example, some research suggests that subsidy payments that are fully or partially decoupled from production, such as those paid solely based on land's historic use, have only a modest effect on crop production. (William Lin and Robert Dismukes, “Supply Response under Risk: Implications for Counter-Cyclical Payments' Production Impact,”
Review of Agricultural Economics
29, no. 1 [2006]: 64–86; Barry K. Goodwin and Ashok K. Mishra, “Are ‘Decoupled’ Farm Program Payments Really Decoupled? An Empirical Evaluation,”
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
88, no. 1 [2006]: 73–89.) As decoupled payments are thought to have little impact on global trade and are thus favored by
the World Trade Organization, the United States has increasingly sought to provide its farmers with decoupled payments in the past couple of decades.

This line of logic might suggest that the subsidy tail isn't actually wagging the feed-producing dog. Nonetheless, there is evidence that a significant portion of farm subsidies
does
influence farmers who grow feed crops, which means these subsidies
do
benefit livestock producers. For example, one study found that more than two-thirds of farmers spend decoupled payments on farm purposes like operating costs, capital expenditures, and farm debt, and larger operators are particularly likely to spend payments on the farm. (Barry K. Goodwin and Ashok K. Mishra, “Another Look at Decoupling: Additional Evidence of the Production Effects of Direct Payments,”
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
87, no. 5 [2005]: 1200–10.) As a result, the study's authors found that decoupled subsidy payments “have important effects on production” (Ibid., 1206). Moreover, the latest farm bill seeks to continue both coupled and decoupled subsidies, and there's no doubt that coupled measures like price supports have a direct effect on production. Some critics even argue that the more than $80 billion spent yearly on food stamps is little more than an enormous price support program, which made the decision to omit that program from the subsidy calculation, as too attenuated, a difficult one. (Grey, Clark, Shih and Associates Limited, “Farming the Mailbox,” 256.) Thus, not only does it seem that decoupled payments do in fact influence production decisions, but larger operators, who get most of the subsidy funds, are the most likely to be so influenced.

44
. Extra equity value is estimated as follows: the US meat industry's market capitalization is $38 billion or 17.2 times earnings; subsidies to the industry reduce operating costs by roughly 10 percent (the midpoint of the range of 5 to 15 percent found by Starmer and Wise); the effect of reducing operating costs by 10 percent is to increase earnings by 10 percent and hence (because market capitalization is based on earnings) to increase market capitalization by 10 percent (thus, without subsidies, market capitalization would be $38 billion – ($38 billion x 0.10) or about $34.2 billion). Annual dividend payments are calculated by multiplying total industry market capitalization of $38 billion by average industry dividend yield rate of 0.6 percent. Because net profit margin is only 2.9 percent but subsidies reduce operating expenses by roughly 10 percent, without subsidies these companies would arguably have no cash with which to pay dividends. Yahoo! Finance, “Meat Products: Industry Statistics,” accessed October 27, 2012,
http://biz.yahoo.com
; Starmer and Wise, “Feeding at the Trough.”

45
. The subsidy figure is 13 percent of Tyson's FY 2010 operating expenses, the amount by which researchers estimate federal crop subsidies help lower Tyson's costs. Starmer and Wise, “Feeding at the Trough”; salary and expense data from US Securities and Exchange Commission, “Filings and Forms,” accessed October 23, 2011,
http://www.sec.gov
.

46
. David Herszenhorn, “Reaching Well Beyond the Farm,”
New York Times
(May 20, 2008).

47
. David Brooks, “Talking Versus Doing,”
New York Times
(May 20, 2008).

48
. Quoted in “A Mediocre Farm Bill,”
New York Times
(June 24, 2012).

49
. Steve Forbes, “Railroading the Taxpayer,”
Fact and Comment
, Forbes.com (August 11, 2010).

50
. Starmer, Witteman, and Wise, “Feeding the Factory Farm,” 32.

51
. See
Appendix C
,
table C2
.

1
. Véronique L. Roger et al., “Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics—2011 Update,”
Circulation
123 (2011): e18–e209.

2
. One in twenty-five estimate based on 2008 US population of 305 million. Department of Health and Human Services, “National Diabetes Statistics,” National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (2011), accessed January 14, 2012,
http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov
; American Cancer Society, “Cancer Prevalence: How Many People Have Cancer?” (2008), accessed January 14, 2012,
http://www.cancer.org
.

3
. World Health Organization, “Obesity and Overweight,” accessed December 25, 2011,
http://www.who.int
.

4
. Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, “Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America” (2008), accessed October 25, 2012,
http://www.ncifap.org
.

5
. US Department of Agriculture, “Nutrient Intakes from Food: Mean Amounts Consumed per Individual, One Day 2005–2006,” accessed November 15, 2011,
http://www.ars.usda.gov
; Department of Health and Human Services, “Know Your Fats,” accessed January 1, 2012,
http://www.csrees.usda.gov
.

6
. The Office of Chief Medical Examiner, “Report of External Examination: Robert Atkins,” The City of New York (2003), accessed November 15, 2011,
http://www.thesmokinggun.com
.

7
.
See, for example
, Rashmi Sinha et al., “Meat Intake and Mortality: A Prospective Study of Over Half a Million People,”
Archives of Internal Medicine
169, no. 6 (2009): 562–71; Teresa T. Fung et al., “Prospective Study of Major Dietary Patterns and Stroke Risk in Women,”
Stroke
35 (2004): 2014–19; Walker, “Diet in the Prevention of Cancer”;
Iqbal et al.
, “Dietary Patterns and Acute Myocardial Infarction.”

8
. M. D. Kontogianni et al., “Relationship between Meat Intake and the Development of Acute Coronary Syndromes: The CARDIO2000 Case–Control Study,”
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition
62 (2008): 171–77.

9
. US Department of Agriculture, “Poultry Supply and Disappearance” (2011), accessed May 23, 2012,
http://www.ers.usda.gov
.

10
. Campbell and Campbell,
China Study
.

11
. National Academy of Sciences,
Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids
(Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2005), 103.

12
. US Department of Agriculture, “Cholesterol (mg) Content of Selected Foods per Common Measure, Sorted by Nutrient Content,” National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 21 (2008).

13
. An Pan et al., “Red Meat Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: 3 Cohorts of U.S. Adults and An Updated Meta-Analysis,”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
94, no. 4 (2011): 1088–96, abstract.

14
. T. Colin Campbell's research found that eating just 7 grams of meat per day increased human subjects' risk of cancer. Campbell and Campbell,
China Study
.

15
.
See, for example
, Gary E. Fraser, “Associations between Diet and Cancer, Ischemic Heart Disease, and All-Cause Mortality in Non-Hispanic White California Seventh-Day Adventists,”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
70, no. 3 (1999): 532s–38s; Rashmi Sinha et al., “Meat and Meat-Related Compounds and Risk of Prostate Cancer in a Large Prospective Cohort Study in the United States,”
American Journal of Epidemiology
170, no. 9 (2009): 1165–77; Tanya Agurs-Collins et al., “Dietary Patterns and Breast Cancer Risk in Women Participating in the Black Women's Health Study,”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
90 (2009): 621–28; Eleni Linos et al., “Red Meat Consumption During Adolescence among Premenopausal Women and Risk of Breast Cancer,”
Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention
17 (2008) 2146–51; Ann Chao et al., “Meat Consumption and Risk of Colorectal Cancer,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
293, no. 2 (2005): 172–82.

16
. Murray Waldman and Marjorie Lamb,
Dying for a Hamburger: Modern Meat Processing and the Epidemic of Alzheimer's Disease
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004).

17
. C. G. Coimbra and V. B. C. Junqueira, “High Doses of Riboflavin and the Elimination of Dietary Red Meat Promote the Recovery of Some Motor Functions in Parkinson's Disease Patients,”
Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research
36, no. 10 (2003): 1409–17.

18
. Ibrahim Abubakar et al., “A Case-Control Study of Drinking Water and Dairy Products in Crohn's Disease—Further Investigation of the Possible Role of Mycobacterium Avium Paratuberculosis,”
American Journal of Epidemiology
165, no. 7 (2007): 776–83.

19
. Hyon K. Choi, “Diet and Rheumatoid Arthritis: Red Meat and Beyond,”
Arthritis & Rheumatism
, 50 (2004): 3745–47.

20
. Hyon K. Choi et al., “Purine-Rich Foods, Dairy and Protein Intake, and the Risk of Gout in Men,”
New England Journal of Medicine
350 (2004): 1093–1103.

21
. Paul N. Appleby, Naomi E. Allen, and Timothy J. Key, “Diet, Vegetarianism, and Cataract Risk,”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
93, no. 5 (2011): 1128–35.

22
. ChartsBin, “Current Annual Worldwide Meat Consumption Per Capita,” accessed December 27, 2011,
http://chartsbin.com
.

23
. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “U.S. Obesity Trends,” accessed December 27, 2011,
http://www.cdc.gov
; World Cancer Research Fund International, “Data Comparing More and Less Developed Countries,” accessed December 27, 2011,
http://www.wcrf.org
; American Cancer Society, “Cancer Facts and Figures 2011,” accessed December 27, 2011,
http://www.cancer.org
; National Cancer Institute, “Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results,” accessed December 27, 2011,
http://seer.cancer.gov
; World Diabetes Foundation, “Diabetes Facts,” accessed December 27, 2011,
http://www.worlddiabetesfoundation.org
; American Diabetes Association, “Diabetes Statistics,” accessed December 27, 2011,
http://www.diabetes.org
.

24
. US Central Intelligence Agency, “Life Expectancy at Birth,” The World Factbook, accessed January 1, 2012,
https://www.cia.gov
.

25
. Gary E. Fraser and David J. Shavlik, “Ten Years of Life—Is It a Matter of Choice?”
Archives of Internal Medicine
161 (2001): 1645–52; Kontogianni et al., “Meat Intake and Acute Coronary Syndromes”; Serena Tonstad et al., “Type of Vegetarian Diet, Body Weight and Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes,”
Diabetes Care
32 (2009): 791–96; Ann Chao et al., “Meat Consumption and Risk of Colorectal Cancer,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
293, no. 2 (2005): 172–82.

26
. P. H. Gann et al., “Prospective Study of Plasma Fatty Acids and Risk of Prostate Cancer,”
Journal of the National Cancer Institute
86, no. 4 (1994): 281–86; Eunyoung Cho, Wendy Y. Chen, and David J. Hunter, “Red Meat Intake and Risk of Breast Cancer Among Premenopausal Women,”
Archives of Internal Medicine
166 no. 20 (2006): 2253–59.

27
. D. A. Snowdon, R. L. Phillips, and G. E. Fraser, “Meat Consumption and Fatal Ischemic Heart Disease,”
Preventative Medicine
13, no. 5 (1984): 490–500; J. Chang-Claude, R. Frentzel-Beyme, and U. Eilber, “Mortality Pattern of German Vegetarians After 11 Years of Follow-Up,”
Epidemiology
3, no. 5 (1992): 395–401.

28
. Walker, “Diet in the Prevention of Cancer”; Iqbal et al., “Dietary Patterns and Acute Myocardial Infarction.”

29
. Hana Ross and Frank J. Chaloupka, “The Effect of Cigarette Prices on Youth Smoking,”
Health Economics
12, no. 3 (2003): 217–30.

30
. Prices adjusted for inflation. US Census Bureau, “US Statistical Abstract” (1940), accessed February 8, 2012,
http://www.census.gov
; US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Average Prices” (2011), accessed February 8, 2012,
http://www.bls.gov
.

31
. Tatiana Andreyeva, Michael W. Long, and Kelly D. Brownell, “The Impact of Food Prices on Consumption: A Systematic Review of Research on the Price Elasticity of Demand for Food,”
American Journal of Public Health
100, no. 2 (2010): 216–22.

32
. Ronald M. Ayers and Robert A. Collinge,
Microeconomics: Explore & Apply
(New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003), 120.

33
. Ibid.

34
. Technically speaking, except where conspicuous consumption is at work (meaning an increase in price increases the quantity demanded), elasticity figures are given in negative numbers. So the actual price elasticity of demand for dairy is -0.65. However, for convenience, this book follows the popular convention of using absolute values rather than negative values for elasticity numbers.