Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #223: Are We Eating Clone Meat & Milk? Plus Why Beef Prices Keep Spiking

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Episode #223: Are We Eating Clone Meat & Milk? Plus Why Beef Prices Keep Spiking · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to another podcast of Beyond Labels with yours truly the farmer Joel Salatin and our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Cena McCullough.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna kind of catch up on a couple of uh loose ends here today.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we've got a couple of things to talk about.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Cena's gonna start.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: She's been doing a little bit of digging around cloned meat.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Are we already eating it?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: What's the USDA's, you know, um regulatory reaction to it, that sort of thing.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then we're going to move into, I'm going to try to bring us up to speed here on the whole the whole beef stuff, all this, all this um uh beef uh brew jaha that's going on.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: And um and so uh we'll we'll conclude with that.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: So uh with no further ado, uh Cena, let's go ahead and let you jump in here and then we'll see where we go.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Joel.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this question came from one of our listeners, and she wondered if cloned meat was being consumed in Canada.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna do uh a little bit of a catch-up here, um, because not everybody knows what cloned meat is.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, first off, I want to ask the question: are we eating cloned meat in America?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is quite possibly yes, but you never know it from the label on your steak, because believe it or not, cloned meat has been in our food supply in America for almost two decades.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So back in 2008, the FDA gave the green light for meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs, and goats to be consumed by Americans, and that means they could be legally sold on the market.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: The offspring of those clones were also approved for human consumption and for sale in America.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: The FDA says that cloned meat and milk from cows, pigs, and goats is as safe as food from conventionally bred animals, and that's why they don't require any labeling.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's probably it's probably grass, right?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh generally safe.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's grass.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's not that's not uh doesn't mean it's grass fed, it just means it's uh generally recognized as safe.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm having like flashbacks to when they approve GMOs and they're like, these are substantially equivalent to you know to the conventional food.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh um now, in practice, farmers rarely butcher the actual cloned animal, right?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those clones are apparently pricey, and so they're usually kept as the breeding stock.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the offspring of those clones that can be raised just like any other farm animal.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then that that means they can move into the normal meat and dairy supply chain.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's unlikely that your burger, for example, is coming directly from a cloned cow, but there is a very real possibility that some of us have eaten meat or consumed dairy from a clone's offspring without actually knowing it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so why why would they, if if cloning is so good, why don't they just keep cloning?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Why do they go?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Why do they clone?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I remember remember Dolly the Sheep?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that was the first cloned animal.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Dolly the sheep.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember when that was, but it's been that was 1996.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: 1996.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: All right, good.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: I figured you'd have the date.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, so, but but but Dolly the sheep had a lot of problems.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: She she had autoimmune problems, she was sickly, she didn't live long, she you know, died.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what so apparently what you're saying is they worked out some of these kinks.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, yeah, okay, so lots to unpack in what you just asked, but yes.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so they did work out some of the kinks, but let's dive deeper into this.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, into first what is cloning and how we got Dolly, and then what's happening with cloning in in our livestock uh sector here in America and other countries.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So cloning is basically when you get a genetic copy of an animal.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the FGA explains it like they're identical twins, but they're just born at different times.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but they have the same genome, apparently.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we've talked about genetic engineering on this program before.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Cloning is not the same as genetic engineering.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, with genetic engineering, you're you're either adding to or taking away genes or modifying genes or you know, combining species together.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Cloning doesn't actually allegedly change the genetic sequence.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is supposed to preserve it and make what are claimed to be these identical copies of animals.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said, Dolly, the sheep, was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell back in 1996.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um that one, so a lot of people actually think that she was the first mammal cloned ever, but that's not actually true.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Scientists had cloned sheep and cattle like back in the 1980s, but the difference is that um those efforts used embryonic cells.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So those cells are naturally flexible and they're still undecided about what they want to become.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Dolly was different.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: She was created from a mature, like a fully mature, highly specialized adult cell.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was a cell that scientists believed was committed to its identity.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it could not rewind itself back to the embryonic state, kind of like stubborn adults, you know?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, so the existence of Dolly herself, even though she was sickly, it kind of proved to scientists that even an adult cell could be reprogrammed.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: That discovery is what fundamentally shifted the cloning of science.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it it led to um cloning of agriculture.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, as you mentioned, yeah, Dolly had a lot of problems.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: She developed arthritis at an early age, like at, I think she was like five and a half, when usually that onset would happen around the age of 10.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: She got lung cancer.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: They she her teleomas were shortened.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So they ended up euthanizing her because she was, you know, she had progressive lung disease.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, now, since though, since that time, researchers have been cloning livestock and a lot of it, and this is since 1996, so many countries are involved in actively cloning agriculture.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, not only the US, but Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, New Zealand, I mean, United Kingdom, you name it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're engaged in this agricultural cloning.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting, one of the things that's interesting is that the method used to clone Dali is the same method they use today.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you can imagine there's only so much improvement, right?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, so just briefly, I want to describe what this technology is so that people can decide from them for themselves if they think that there's risk involved.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: The method is called somatic cell nuclear transfer, S C N T.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: So somatic cell nuclear transfer.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: What they do is scientists take an immature egg from a female animal, and instead of fertilizing that egg, like with the sperm, for example, they remove its nucleus, right?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the genetic material is contained.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then they insert the nucleus or the genetic material from the donor animal, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is the animal that they want to clone.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: They insert that genetic material into the empty egg.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And now, Joel, you'll like this because you know on this program we've talked about um how we our bodies and animals' bodies generate light and we are electric beans.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we've talked about when the sperm and the embryo, uh, when the when the sperm and the egg meet, um, there's a zinc spark that occurs, like an actual light.
• 8:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So scientists have figured out to get this process of cloning to work, when they stick that donor um genes, when they stick that genetic material into this egg, the empty egg, they have to provide some kind of spark.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So they shoot an electrical pulse into it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it does two things.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It fuses the donor's nucleus with this um enucleated egg, and it also then triggers it to begin dividing into an embryo.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So then it's dividing and then it becomes this embryo.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then the embryo is taken and implanted into the surrogate mother or the dam, and then she carries it hopefully to term and gives birth, you know, like you would from regular uh reproduction.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So quite the process, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can only imagine something's gonna go wrong.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, you know, I think it's important to realize that cloning in plants, I mean, I'm friends with a with a a far a flower farmer, horticulturalist, and um and they've been cloning daylilies for decades.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, you you get you get i if if if you if um if randomness suddenly gives you this amazing flower, then if you clone it, you go away from randomness.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and and you get an identical.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I just want our our listeners to understand that probably a high percentage of people listening to us right now have cloned flowers in their flower beds.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that that's kind of where it was done first because of the money in the beauty of you know, of an iris, a daylily, uh something like that, where they they they take the they take the bulb, actually take the bulb and shave it um uh real thin.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um it's it's it's it's you know that's been done for a very, very long time in plants.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: So this is this is you know, obviously animals are a lot more complicated, and so it took a long a longer time to get into animals.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: But the but the um the impetus is if you have a perfect a fur perfect specimen of whatever it is to be able to eliminate randomness, uh is there's you know, there's a lot of reason to want to get a a second copy of perfection.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: That that's the philosop that's the philosophical um idea.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that's it out the round, you know, and I I think yeah, I I think I think we can even get bogged down here.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is uh your time, but but uh but but the f the philosophical I mean just think, Cena, what the the the spiritual philosophical idea of eliminating eliminating randomness in succession.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that you could write a whole book just on that on that idea that okay, we're going to take out randomness from succession.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: That has all sorts of interesting, you know, things.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and it is very concerning because that's what they're doing with the food supply.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're decreasing diversity potentially, right, right, which can lead to a less resilient food supply.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and we've seen this with monocrops, we've seen this with potato blights, you know, in the past, right?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that is a very real concern.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Joel, you're exactly right.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is uh because I wondered, I was like, why would anyone want to actually clone our livestock?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's what I found was farmers and breeders usually want to replicate valuable traits in these animals.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: So even on the FDA's website, they give this example of, oh, pick basically, I mean, these are my own words, but picture a dairy cow that's your your dream dairy cow.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And like for eight years, she's conceived on the first try.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: She's birthed calves like a champ, she's poured out rich, abundant milk.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: The rest of the herd has battled sniffles and she's been strong.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but eventually she will reach the end of her reproductive road.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so instead of waiting for maybe her daughters to have carry her legacy forward, the farmer can simply copy her through cloning so he can preserve those best traits and beat her, and then breed the duplicates and fast track the the entire herd.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the same thing happens with the meat animals, right?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: If a boar consistently sires fast growing lean meat offspring, farmers can clone that one.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, so it's this it's the whole concept too of of our food supply is just fast.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's fast tracked, you know, it's whatever is convenient.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, last year's last year's um Kentucky Derby, you know, the big horse race, Kentucky Derby.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Every single horse in last year's Kentucky Derby was an offspring of Secretariat.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh I mean, not not not directly.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them were great, great, you know, great great grandchildren.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: But but you know, somewhere, every single horse in a Kentucky Derby last year.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I read this, um, I'm assuming it's right.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but every single horse in a Kentucky Derby had had genetic background to secretariat.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's that that's how amazing he was.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and and that's you know, that's with randomness.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's not even with cloning.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine what they could do with horses, they get their hand on this kind of precision breeding, you know.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, oh, so um, so to move it along, so I want to get to your part too.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: So again, this was approved in the FDA in 2008.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what they concluded was the milk and meat from cows, pigs, and goats is safe and uh from their offspring, it's as safe to eat as food we eat every day.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's a quote.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So um their assessment is in this document that Joel, I'm kidding, this document is about a thousand pages long.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is their risk assessment assessment.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: In that document, and again, if anyone's not familiar with these government documents, this risk assessment document is where they lay out their case for their conclusion that this is safe for us to eat.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: They admit in this document that cloning is not precise.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here is a quote from that document.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: It, meaning the agency, accepts that at this time, SCNT, which is that cloning method I explained to you, is a biologically imprecise and inefficient process, but recognizes that animals are capable of biological repair or adaptation.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so basically it's not precise and it's inefficient, but they're relying on nature to repair or adapt to like any damage that that may have occurred through this breeding technique for through cloning.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then it goes on to say provided that all other measures appear to be normal, the clone is likely to produce edible products that pose no food consumption risk.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it says likely to produce.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then it says clones with ab with anomalies are likely to be considered unsuitable for food.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, even that, I don't even like the fluffiness of the words.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're likely to be considered unsuitable.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like that gives you play right there, right?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I will I will say that in this document, it gives you all these anomalies that it's referring to of these of these clones that are likely to be considered unsuitable to be fed to us.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And those anomalies can range from um stillbirths, uh malformed animals, sick animals, animals that die early.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just one of the studies that was cited in this document uh lists a cohort of 58 live-born calves, and they followed those calves through maturity.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they said that 76% of them survived the first week.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: The nine clones that died, they this is a direct quote.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: They suffered from issues like hypothermia, umbilical hernia, respiratory problems, abnormal fluid accumulation in the chest and the abdomen, of fatty liver, limb deformities, digestive tract problems, abnormal or degenerating kidneys.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this this is I this is again, I realize this is not genetic engineering, but this is uh exactly what happened with uh genetically modified organisms, GMOs, where they had all these these uh things.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, oh goodness, our our GMO cotton that's supposed to be so good.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh uh surprise of all surprises, it uh it's more frost prone.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so the first year that farmers planted it, um, there were millions of dollars lost by farmers.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: They had an early frost, and first time they'd ever lost a cotton crop to frost um because the GMO was, but nope, nobody picked that up.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was it it was um it was an unknown.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: And and and that's true on numerous scales.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's uh it's really hard to take nature's um whatever randomness completely off the table.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: There, there's there's it's like it's like uh there's gonna be random randomness no matter what.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so the randomness in a clone shows up in these autoimmune, early mortality, uh, you know, malformation, stillbirth, you know, all sorts of things.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I don't know why anybody would be surprised because, like you said, we saw this in plants and also with you know with genetic engineering, and we saw this in recombinant bovine growth hormone, which was that genetically engineered hormone just injected into cows that caused a lot of sickness amongst the cows.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that was just an injection, you know.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is trying to clone an entire animal.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a surprise that we're having that there's all these issues.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so and and it's documented today, it is well documented in the scientific literature that the there's still um higher death rates, you know, at birth, and that there's still more sickness in these animals, these cloned animals, than animals that result from conventional breeding.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now, I would like to also add that there's no long-term studies on consuming the foods from these cloned animals.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: The FDA admits this on their website, and I want to read to you what their stance is because you know, when when there's a public comment period, there are a lot of um people and organizations that stepped up and said, you can't release these clones into our food supply because there has not been long-term studies.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: This was the FDA's rebuttal.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I quote cloning doesn't put any new substances into an animal.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there is no quote, new substance to test.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Feeding milk or meat from clones to lab animals as part of a regular diet wouldn't let us tell whether any negative outcomes observed were due to the food from the clones or from something else the lab animals were exposed to.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, okay, I gotta pause there.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the whole reason we have control groups in studies.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, right?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is absurd.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, and and and just the whole idea that it doesn't put any new substances, well, well, are there substances that it that it not that you're putting new substances, are there substances that it doesn't have that you should have?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is one of the reasons why we don't do artificial insemination here with with anything, uh, which you know, even in organics and everything else they do.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because because when you when you use um um artificial insemination, uh what they do is they they take they take one bull's ejaculation and they make a hundred straws out of it.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: A hundred straws.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, under normal service, that service would would create one calf from one sperm that beat out all the others to get into that egg.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: So you're creating number 98, number 97, number 96, number 95.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Suddenly you have you have a hundred calves from second best, third best, fourth best, all the way to 99th best sperm.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: What what are those lacking that that vigorous one that beat out all the others had to get in?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's not we've not just added something, what have we detracted from the system?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: That is going to make it weaker.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then you know, do we have weak food?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And also, you can add unintended consequences, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: There can be unintended like uh genetic mutations, you know, things like that.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And how are they they can't say that that isn't happening because how do you test for something that you don't know exists?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't know it exists, you can't test for it.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And along that lines of what you're saying, the FDA on their website uses artificial insemination as a reason to support cloning because they said on their site more than 70% of the Holstein cows bred in the United States are artificially inseminated.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Cloning is just a more advanced form of these assisted reproductive technologies.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep, yep.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so they're using that as their basis, exactly what you said.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think that's shocking, the the percentage that's of you know, the cows that are already artificially inseminated.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's crazy.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're already losing diversity there.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, but this quote goes on the one about no long-term studies.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the FDA says next.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't possible to have someone or even lab animals eat only meat or drink only milk.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Doing so would not provide a healthful diet and would likely cause illness.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like if the implication wasn't so dire, this is like a comedy.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, yeah.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Our taxes are paying for bean counters to sit around and spit out this kind of dribble.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, like like if we're gonna do a study, then this is all you can eat.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: You can't eat you can't eat this with other things.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So then it says food scientists, toxicologists, and regulators have faced this problem before and decided that long-term feeding trials of whole foods don't give meaningful results.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, really, it's so upsetting that I have to laugh.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, as a scientist and as somebody who eats meat, like this is so upsetting that I just have to laugh or I'm going to become enraged.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: What they really are saying is long-term feeding trials where where the um the test subjects eat only eat only one food have been found to not work.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: But we all know that eating only one food is not healthy.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they're saying that well, they're saying the last sentence said long-term feeding trials of whole foods doesn't give meaningful result.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: The statement before that was saying doing so it wouldn't provide a healthful diet and it would likely cause illness if they only ate meat or drink milk.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: So you you think that the term whole foods is it's plural.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Plural means any any foods.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, well, they didn't caveat it, but it's saying whole foods.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is government.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: They may be they may not realize what they wrote there.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's impossible.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Even the notion that you can't provide a lab rat with just meat or a human with just meat and see what happens, and that that like that would cause illness.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's wrong.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's wrong.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's even ancient cultures that that's all they had was you know, fatty meats, you know.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and lots of people do heal um illnesses, diseases, uh, on like the lion diet, for example, where you're only eating meat.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't tell me that uh they're basically just coming up with reasons here that to justify not doing long-term studies.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, so knowing, knowing that in this thousand-page document, that they have they're saying it's imprecise, they're saying it's ineffective, they're saying that all these animals are sick, they're saying there's no long-term studies, yet it's okay for us to eat and there's no label required.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right like that's that's crazy.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the USDA supported that decision.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the bottom line from the FDA part is as of 2008, cloned cows, pigs, and goats that are created through this technology that is imprecise, they've been allowed to enter the food supply without any labels.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that you and me, whoever is uh uh you know, is consuming meat and milk in America, you may very well have eaten some of this cloned meat or uh well, it'd be it'd technically be the cloned descendants of the animal if you're eating the meat and you may not have realized it.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: So this is from the FDA's website.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because my next question was okay, are we eating it directly from the cloned animal?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Are we eating it from the offspring?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And how much are we eating?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what the FDA says.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's highly unlikely that you will see meat from clones at the supermarket.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: We anticipate the clones would be used as elite breeding animals rather than as food themselves.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Although I don't know what happens when those animals are not viable anymore.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Are they thrown into the food supply?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it doesn't say it says in, but then it goes on to say instead the sexually reproduced offspring of animal clones would be the animals intended to produce the food.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the meat coming from the coming from the offspring, the meat comes from the offspring of the clones, but the milk is different.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: They say milk from cow clones may enter the food supply once the clones are bred and they have their calves, right?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because the cow doesn't make milk until after it has the calf.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the which I learned from you.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the milk can come from the cloned cow.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so there's a little nuance there.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Meat would come from the offspring, milk comes from the cloned cow.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then the FDA says it's important to remember though that at this time there are only a few hundred cattle clones, most of which are not dairy cow.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it's highly unlikely that there will be much milk from dairy cow cloned in the food supply.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know when that statement was dated because you can't find these things on their website.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't know when they when they actually made that announcement.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: How long ago was that?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: When I dug into how many clones are there, so you have to know that and how many offspring to get an estimate, right?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Of how big of a deal is this in our food supply.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: What I was able to find was a couple things in 2010.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: So again, this is another old document.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is only two years um after the FDA approval.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's a Congressional Research Service report, and what they said was that it could be uh nationwide, there could be hundreds or even thousands of these offspring being slaughtered in the food supply.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that that's not a lot compared to how many millions of cows and hogs are slaughtered, right?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but let's say in 2010 it was thousands.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So since that congressional report, there's been advocacy groups and industrial reports saying that there are now many thousands of clone farm animals worldwide, likely thousands of their offsprings are in the food chain.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a 2025 piece in, I believe it was the Atlantic, and they quoted a rancher who's using these clone sires.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he said that the offspring of those clones have already been eaten by either tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: In that report, it also noted that ranchers have bought, quote, thousands of straws of semen from the clone sires.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't know the exact numbers, right?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're piecing this together.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and a lot of these are coming from like eyewitness reports, um, you know, in organizations that are against this that are trying to dig into this.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what it certainly suggests is that the clone genetics are far more widespread in the food supply than most of us actually realize.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: But because the cloned animal and their offspring are not tracked and they're not labeled, I can't find any US agency published data that gives us an exact current count.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, because because they're not they're counting, they're not counting them.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's not a there's not a box to check when you go to the slaughterhouse.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: They don't, you know, well, this one and this one, you know, there's no there's not a report that they make.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we did, you know, we did 4,000 of this kind and 2,000 of this kind.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's just um if they if they walk on four legs and move, they're good.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because they because the FDA considers them substantially equivalent.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: So why would you need to track it?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, right?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: But so clearly, so so we don't really know, but like we're saying, I mean, there could be thousands or more uh uh that are going into the food supply.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've talked about before how meat um from one animal can like you what was that quote that you gave about like a burger can be consisted of how many?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a McDonald's a McDonald's hamburger on average has pieces of 600 animals in it.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's what I'm saying.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like there you can see the case where even if the numbers stay small, there's a chance that little pieces of this become more wide widespread than one would think.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like when I buy meat from you, Joel, and like it's the cow that went in there and it got butchered and I know what I'm getting, you know.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there is that increased risk.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, so um when I was studying all this, really, my I just kept coming back to you need to buy from farmers who you know who are who know that they're doing clone free, right?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and so that you know where your meat and your dairy are coming from, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and then this this isn't just um in America either.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the question that we got was somebody who's living in Canada.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Canada.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just briefly address um a couple updates on other countries.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So um so Australia and New Zealand, they allow cloned meat to be sold in the marketplace with no pre-market approval and with no labeling.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: On their website, they say there's currently 30 to 40 cloned animals, they're all cattle, those are in Australia and that they're being used for breeding.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that basically it's this one it says um food products from these cloned animals are not currently entering the food supply.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Food products from their offspring are almost certainly entering the food supply.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's there as well.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: The European Union has banned uh cloning of the farm animals for food production.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: But in in Canada, so this is why there was a little bit of an uproar lately, because just this year in 2025, Health Canada, which is their national authority, they proposed a regulatory change that would allow meat from cloned animal, uh, from cloned cattle and pigs, as well as their offspring, to enter the food supply without a safety review and without mandatory labeling.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Before they were considered novelty.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: So they had to go through this review process.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they proposed this regulatory change, and there was such a pushback from the public that as of November 19th, on the Health Canada's website, it says that they've paused the policy revision and that for now cloned meat products remain unapproved, and cloned animals or their meat are not legally on the Canadian market.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they said it still remains a public debate.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some hope for them.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we're going the wrong way, Joel.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it never uh it never quits, does it?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so while we're on cattle, can we can we uh can we talk about can we talk about uh cattle a little bit?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, please.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: And and and one of the reasons, just so everybody's with us here on this, the reason that cattle, that that beef cows and dairy cows are the primary um whatever, you know, uh uh subjects in this in this technology is because is because their cycling is so much slower than the smaller animals.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, chickens and turkeys and things like that, you know, they have a gestation period, pigs even uh that that's that's quite fast.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas a cow from birth to motherhood to offspring, you know, is a multi-year uh process.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh chickens, you know, it's a it's it's a multi, it's it's just a few months.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's why this technology is being applied primarily to the big animals because their cycle is so slow.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if we can so the idea is if we can speed that up, uh we can make we we can we can make genetic progress fast as fast with cows as we can, for example, with chickens, you know, if if we if we can speed that up.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to bring everybody along with us, you know, kind of on on the on the farmer's element uh of this, you know, why why cows and not you know some of the things.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and maybe that's a little bit of good news because maybe they'll leave the chickens alone for a while, at least long enough for Americans to realize what's happening and stand up and say no.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's possible.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: So so everybody's heard a lot about beef lately, and and and um there there's a lot of discussion about what's going on with the beef herd.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we we're in a we're in the midst of a of a perfect storm.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: So let me just tick off why the United States beef herd is lower than it's ever been right now, lower than it's ever been since 1950.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, we had two um tremendous droughts down in the southern tier of the U.S.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: that resulted in a huge sell-off of herds.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: And again, remember a cow, you you can't just you know, you can't just uh um change the cow herd fast.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: It you know, it's a it's a long cycle.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so 21, uh 2021, 2022 were um uh you know legacy uh droughts in the southern tier of the US, southern Georgia, uh across Alabama, Louisiana, um, Mississippi.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I've said this, I think, on this program before.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was in uh Mississippi in the fall of 2022 and met farmers who were who were having their cows break their legs, stepping in cracks, the ground had opened up so wide, the cows stepped in and broke their legs.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that's of course devastating.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: You you you can't save a cow like that.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: So um so we so we had the drought.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's number one.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: Number two is that the farmers are getting older.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so even when things change, the rain comes back, the price goes up, whatever.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, whereas in the past, um, you know, farmers ramp up.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this time there are so many aging out farmers that we don't have the farmer manpower, the farmer and rancher manpower to um, and not that women can't raise cows too.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: The women do great raising cows.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: All right, just to put a put a good uh spin on it, but we just don't have the people uh on the land right now to respond to to the the price increases due to the shortage.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: So so it's it's so it's a lethargic response, is what I'm getting at.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's a slow, slow response.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: Number three, uh there's screw worm coming up from Mexico.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I remember as a kid that there was screw worm, and um all farmers had a little, you know, a little bottle of screw worm spray that you could, you know, spray.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I can't remember if we ever had any any here or not on our farm, but um I know that it was a it was a deal and and I saw them on some other people's places.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, um the it it it they came up from the south and um the USDA uh started a fruit fly, a fruit fly um hatching program that that is a parasite.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a parasitic fly on the screw worm.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um and and essentially this the whole screw worm thing dissipated over you know over a few years and just became I'm we don't even hear about it anymore.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and we've been basically you know screw worm-free for years and years.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, suddenly it showed up now in Mexico, and um, and of and so as a result, the USDA closed the Mexican border from imports.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh to show oh I thought I had numbers here.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm not sure that I do.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, there are there are um you know thousands and thousands of beef animals that come up from Mexico.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, here you go.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um there were eight ports, eight ports of entry into the U.S.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: But late in the spring, just this past spring, late in the spring and in May, the USDA closed all eight of those ports of entry for Mexican cattle.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: So um that that yeah, here it is.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um that stopped one million head of cattle who normally would have crossed the border that haven't.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you suddenly take the low herd, the all the the the what I've already described, and then you throw in a million animals that aren't coming across the border, what you get is uh you you get a shortage.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and that's what we're doing, we're dealing with with uh a tremendous shortage.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: So interestingly, back uh who we're let's see, back in early November, President Trump uh took issue with ranchers and farmers for high cattle prices, and he was lambasting.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: These were this was in the Wall Street Journal and other normal news places, where he was lambasting farmers and ranchers for being greedy and selfish and you know, charging all this money uh for beef.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, um then suddenly November 7, he kind of changed his tune.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and and believe me, Trump is very, very well aware that rural America is Trump country.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, when when you look when you look at the red and blue map, the blue is urban and the red is rural.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: And and the map looks red, but there are so many people living in the urban areas that it, you know, it it it it uh comes out about even, even though, you know, um 85% of the land mass of the country voted for Trump.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Umly 15% of the land mass voted for Trump, but that's where the people live.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, November 7th, uh the White House issued a you know a statement and uh said it was sicking the Department of Justice on the meat packing companies to look for collusion, price fixing, and you know, price manipulation.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and he said, you know, we will always protect our American ranchers, and they're being blamed for what's being done by a majority foreign-owned meatpackers.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: So right now, JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and natural beef, four companies buy and process 85% of the beef in the United States.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: Just to show you how fast that has occurred, in 1980, in 1980, those four companies, their share was 36 percent in 1980.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: Today it's 85 percent.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: So the the the White House's statement is that the industry consolidation has crushed competition and hammered cattle producers uh because of this consolidation.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: It led to the exploitation of American consumers, farmers, and ranchers.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: And the Trump's official position is that the giant meat packers have historically squeezed American cattle producers, shrunk herds, and jacked up prices at grocery stores.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now, um what's interesting about this A is how fast Trump changed his tune once the ranchers um uh pushed.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: back on on his blaming them.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: And number two, isn't it interesting that for all the years this was going on, uh nobody really cared, it seemed like.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you know one of the one of the questions one of the big questions that that I think the Department of Justice and the investigation is trying to find out is how much of today's shortage is created by what was created in this in this long lead up time.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: Did these four big companies have they colluded?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Have they actually gotten together?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Have they violated you know antitrust uh the Sherman Act and and antitrust stuff uh or or is this just a you know is this just a factor of old farmers uh drought and shutting the Mexican border you know what is it and um and and so interestingly um Brooke Rollins who's a Secretary of Agriculture has um has of course you know taken the taken the um kind of taken the White House position here and um interestingly she's talking about for example opening up five million acres of government land for um for grazing open more grazing and so so when you when you look at at her solutions um here here you go her her her top three solutions um open up more grazing in the west she's talking about five million what uh uh acres number two label real american beef and I think anybody that's listened to our program they're probably up on the fact that you can now import beef from Argentina Uruguay Paraguay Brazil in a box in the U.S.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: And if you do the final retail package in the U.S.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: it qualifies as American beef and and this this is wrapped up with country of origin labeling and of course you know um farmers are livid about this this loophole that as long as it's as the final packaging is done in the U.S.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: it's considered American product so this is what this is why she's talking she's taken shake taking a position number two here uh is label real American beef in other words have a um I mean whether this would be new legislation new regulation new directive or simply uh enforcement of the old rules that have not been enforced I I don't have an answer for that but but her point is let's let's make sure that if it's labeled American beef it was actually grown birthed and raised um in in America and then number three is to open up more processing opportunities uh a great big plant just closed in uh where was this in Nebraska um where am I here uh the Lexington beef plant in Nebraska uh just closed and um they processed you ready for this number five thousand head of beef a day oh wow five thousand head of beef a day where's my calculator I don't have it right here in front of me but I want you to think about uh let me grab my cat okay all right here we are uh I had it in my briefcase because I just did a a business seminar at Acres USA and uh and I had it with me to do figuring so 5,000 beef a day and I think that's so cool because you're totally the opposite of the stereotype of a farmer like you carry a calculator in your briefcase well you have a briefcase and you carry a calculator and you wear suits like right so I want you to think about this that is that is 6.5 million pounds of animal a day a day 6.5 million pounds of animal a day now a a a tractor trailer like you know these big potbelly you know you're Pas money interstate you know these big uh carrying cattle uh so a pot belly load they carry 45 000 pounds so if we divide that by 45 000 that's a hundred and forty tractor trailer loads of cattle a day wow in one plant you know how much how much guts that is how much manure how much blood how much I mean it it it it's almost well anyway so this plant just closed okay and it's just one one plant in Lexington Nebraska three that 3000 jobs but it interestingly there are already three plants within one hour of that plant that closed and they're not operating at capacity so they will absorb all that volume and um and and and so um when she says we need more processing what she really means is we need more small plant processing.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where I think you know for all of her her faults from what I've been able to see Brooke Rollins does seem to have a heart uh for you know for smaller operations a little better than I've seen in the past and uh interestingly she she says you know I haven't been in Washington I didn't grow up here I don't have any you know ties to Washington.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: So she sees herself as a very much an outsider and uh I I I saw a an hour interview with her the other day and actually listened to the whole thing.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um so I'm I'm pulling this from my notes from that from that interview with her.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so here here's my here's my deal uh uh on the on the beef i i have no clue right now if there's any collusion within the markets i i I don't have a clue and I'm not gonna make a position on that you know something that actually violates like you know antitrust regular rules I don't know um I can tell you this when you take a calf down to the sale barn I mean just to show you show you how the prices have increased uh one year ago feeder cattle so these are uh yeah feeder cattle so these are these are calves going to a feedlot one year ago they were two dollars and sixty two cents a pound in in October they were three dollars and seventy eight cents a pound oh wow and in November they've already dropped to three dollars and four cents a pound um so and and of course she also mentioned in this the tariffs that the tariffs have had have had um um you know some some effect and imports of lean trim um have all that but but the other thing that she said was that the demand for beef has never been higher with the lion diets carnivore keto uh what's the other one um anyway there's paleo paleo thank you yeah that was the other one paleo i mean think about the think about the press in the health community that that beef has gotten and especially grass finished beef and are you ready for this number only one percent of the grass fed beef sold in America one percent of grass finished beef sold in America is American beef 99% of grass finished beef sold in America is imported from Australia New Zealand Uruguay Paraguay Brazil Argentina wow is that sold in grocery stores or also in across farms like like all sales all all all sales all sales oh wow i i don't know where they get these numbers because we certainly don't put our numbers on anything so whatever numbers they're getting they're not getting them from us uh i mean from our farm you mean you're not on their speed dial when they're doing these surveys when the surveys come they go right in the trash can every single time none of none of their business um so so you know when when uh when the virginia uh ag thing comes out and they say virginia sold x number of you know dollars worth of ag products um I know they're missing a few million uh because polyphan never fills it out so uh I I don't I don't know how they I don't know how they figure out the slippage there but but anyway um uh I I I I my bottom line on this you know so we've got that beef issue and and and I don't know if there's collusion I know the herd size down I know the the market is up I know that the the Mexican border's been closed and um and and I know that ranchers are aging.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: Those are things that I know all right so I look at this the other thing that I know is this soybean thing you know when China backed out of the soybean thing and now Trump is talking about and and and Brooke Rollins are talking about somewhere between a 10 to 15 to probably be about 12 billion dollar bailout to soybean farmers because they're gonna lose 100 maybe just give in case someone hasn't listened to that podcast episode maybe just give like a real quick synopsis of what the soybean um issue is sure so so uh roughly 25% of America's soybean um crop has gone to China the last several years and in retaliation for Trump's tariffs China signed a deal with um Argentina to switch buying soybeans from the U.S.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: to Argentina and so suddenly the soybean price dropped about$3 a bushel because of the over overage and as a result in 2025 right now the prognosis is that all soybean farmers will lose about$100 an acre on their soybeans and realize there are a lot of farmers that raise you know two to three four thousand acres of soybeans I mean you know you get it in the big big Midwest these big Midwestern areas and so um so you know what what do we what what do we again you know Trump's uh Trump's base is um is rural America and so he's very sensitive to pushback from rural america especially those core conservative senators from Nebraska Kansas Iowa you know Wisconsin Indiana Ohio Oklahoma Texas that's that's the core that's the heart of the Republican you know uh uh Senate and and and they are completely uh whatever dependent on on the farm vote in in their in their rural you know rural uh states and so Trump is contemplating this this bailout you know this multi-billion dollar bailout for soybean farmers uh to help them uh stay in my problem with that is that it uh it eliminates or it um it protects uh farmers from having to make decisions about uh their future about what to do you know um money can affect your decisions and if you're always protected uh from making bad decisions like there's some safety net that will always pick you up for making a bad decision you kind of keep making bad decisions because well somebody will take care of me and and that's kind of the way I view these soybean farmers so I I have gone very very public with a challenge to soybean farmers uh saying why don't you come into the grass-fed beef movement we need more beef you've got the best land in the world because you don't raise soybeans on bad land you know you don't raise soybeans on land like we have here at polyphase you know um our land here is not soybean land it's hilly and rocky and you know all that um so nothing there's no land in the world that would respond faster and more dramatically to returning to perennial prairie polycultures than Midwest soybean acreage and so my biggest my I was saying my biggest beef uh with the with the Trump administration right now is that that they are that that the safety net to all these soybean farmers is is kicking the can down the road of the fact that that the world right now is overproducing soybeans.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: Why because of the U.S.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_02: safety net under soybeans all right and and and if you pull out the the the um the subsidies the the incentive the safety net for overproducing something then perhaps you'll look at something else maybe you'll grow apples or cows or sheep or tomatoes or you know something else and and and and this whole the this I think the the fact that the the beef cattle farmers are being accused of selfishness while the soybean farmers are being are being accused of uh of being um being maligned you know uh abused it the the juxtaposition is almost comical when you look at government policy for the two things and so now you know am I opposed to you know releasing land well what what Brooke Rollin needs to do is the federal government should just sell that land uh don't don't release it to farmers you know in with a bunch of bureaucratic um you know oversight that won't let them do things that they that that that they want to do and of course a lot of that land will be overgrazed it'll be abused just like a lot of the BLM land is being abused now that's another discussion for another day but but for sure um the the protection of the of the soybean farmers and the demonization of the beef farmers those two things in my view are they're they're they're they're they're intertwined they're they're wrapped up they're not two separate things and and the problem is when we talk about government policy and ag policy it's always looked at in in singularity you know as if the soybean farmers have nothing to do with the beef cattle farmers and and all this and um and the the fact is that you know we farmers we're we're producing things we grow things we're producing things and so that to that extent you know we are you know we are uh um networked you know we're we're we're we're collaborative in that respect that we're you know we're growing things we're turning solar energy into something meat milk potatoes uh soybeans or something and and so the decisions that farmers make um are corrupted and made perverse by the interventive manipulation of government whether it's whether it's on the one hand saying you guys are charging too much or on the other hand saying you guys need to be helped because you're producing too much all of it is is is a is a related ball of wax yeah I mean it just sounds like uh they're just making everything worse like yeah yeah I I I I agree I agree uh uh that they are um now now in deference to the soybean farmers you know they're gonna well I don't want to raise cows then I'd have to go out and move them I'd have to look at them I I can you know sit on my tractor for a month and plant soybeans and I can go to you know uh go to Las Vegas for two months then come back and harvest it and then go to Bermuda for the winter you know uh I I I I I get that I get that but but the but but from a from a from a federal policy standpoint is it the government's responsibility to babysit to babysit the consequences of decisions to overproduce yeah I say it's not yeah yeah other but you know if there's no consequences to the actions they're not gonna learn it's just like when you raise kids you know right like with a whole generation where we're like oh you know we don't want to be we don't want them to have to feel the consequence of their actions that you know we made it too comfortable for them and they don't learn right and then you have people who can't stand on their own two feet and so I think that's what you're seeing happening with the farmers.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now now has is Trump going to bail them out like has that already been decided oh yeah yeah that that's uh that's that's in the hopper I think that's that's gonna happen for sure that's gonna happen for sure okay and and um and of course uh Brooke Rollins says you know when they they feel like they're getting feeling more comfortable about the this the new world screw worm and as they do that she said we'll we'll open up one one port at a time but you have to realize that a lot of us farmers that have cattle we we're we're making money you know we're it it's it's the packers that are hurting that that have to pay these high prices I mean you uh you go down to the you go down to the sale barn and um believe me if the packers if the packers could drop the price they would but um but the often the packers own the feed yards you know the the feedlot fattening yards and so um so you know for the w when you look at the percentage that the farmer is getting right now I mean I know the last time that this happened it wasn't as dramatic as this but the last time when when farmers when the cattle farmers were at the top of the cycle instead of the bottom of the cycle um the the feedlot owners and the packers lost somewhere between a hundred and two hundred dollars per animal that they ran through well then when the when the price dropped way off because farmers started growing more cow more more animals and the price dropped uh then the packers um uh recouped you know everything that they had lost for two years they recouped it in two years and so you know these so these things uh developed the the the the thing was that the packers during that time though the ones with the deep the deepest pockets and the best monetization were able to survive and this has created a lot of this consolidation within the industry is the buying out of the weaker you know the weak the weaker financially weaker entities uh uh that that's what happens is there collusion is there corruption i i have i have no idea uh you know of those four companies though remember two of them are either completely foreign owned or majority foreign owned so just consider that half that you know nearly half of America's beef supply coming into the store is control controlled in some way by a foreign interest.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now are those okay so on the list you have JBS are aren't they Brazilian owned?
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah that's right.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay then we have that's fully that's fully Brazilian owned fully Brazilian then we have cargo and Tyson foods and the national beef they're partially foreign owned.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay is that one are they also partially um owned by Brazil like a Brazilian company I I don't I don't know what I don't know what country you're over my you're over my pay grade I I don't I don't know what country um yeah okay it says a Brazilian based company yeah yeah Marfree Global Foods okay so so two of these companies right are you know owned or partially owned by Brazil yeah basically foreign owned yeah so I'm glad you brought that up because um that's the first thing that I thought of when I'm like oh you know I saw Trump's announcement and they call them like the big four meat packers and I was like oh yeah get them like like you know because we know we've talked about the history on this podcast you know that this started with um Upton Sinclair's book and consolidation and so my initial thought was well of course there's going to be something nefarious going on there um but I mean that's a good point that you bring up I mean the flip side of that is the or the part I think that a lot of us don't actually think about is that it's the choices that have been made by some of these other you know farmers and establishments that maybe they weren't as viable and so that they went under so naturally you would start consolidating.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right well uh uh let and let me assure you let me assure you that Brooke Rollins uh is is um under siege every day by these packers to reopen the Mexican border and get those cheaper cattle in here to to drop the price because because they're having to pay I mean I can tell you you can we can go down here to the to the live animal you know the sale barn right here in our in our county and believe me if if if if they could get them for zero they would okay uh you know they they these big companies they they they they don't have any love I mean I do agree they don't really have a love for the farmer they're they're trying to buy as cheap as they can and sell as expensive as they can I mean that's you know that's that's their business um that's that it's it's not it's not corrupt to try to make a profit that's not corrupt and um and and so I I think I think the you know the quick the quickest way for them to get out of their problem is imports.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think there's much question about that especially Mexico and and look just imagine just imagine the Mexican ranchers who have been shipping these million head of cattle up to the U.S.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_02: who suddenly can't ship them to the U.S.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're uh they're being destroyed they're being financially destroyed yeah because they don't have any places they don't have any place to send their animals maybe they'll get a bailout um but you know and and and you you can't you can't tell a you can't tell a beef animal quit growing you know uh uh I don't have any place to go with you so could you just stop eating and don't drink any water till I can figure out what to do with you.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know these these this is biology it's animals you know you can't you can't just you can't just stop it it's it's in the it's in the the pipeline you know and it has to go.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah so yeah so it's interesting thing but but um as far as I can tell I'm the only one I've seen anywhere and I try to keep up with it who is who is linking the soybean issue to the beef issue.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody else is is linking that and and I think I think they're both they're both symptoms of of uh you know of of policy of policy problems.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I think this is so fascinating I I'm I guess somewhat interested to see what their investigation what Trump's investigation um finds but you know you're gonna find what you want to find I think in a lot of ways um but you know because I was looking at I mean just to even think because obviously this affects all of us who eat meat right because the prices have gone up and so I was looking into it and you know some economists in addition to what you you already have shared droughts farmers getting older the screw worm from Mexico um you know um some maybe some consolidation issues some economists um have been noting and I want to see what you think about this that the price increases at the grocery store have been quote mostly in their opinion influenced by factors like labor transportation and input costs is there do you think there's any validity to that you at the grocery store itself um at for buying the meat the basically they're saying the price of beef has gone up because of labor cost transportation and input costs have increased well in input in this case input is the price of the cattle I mean I mean I mean just take this this one plant we just mentioned 5,000 beef a day right right now if they're if they're paying three thousand dollars a day per for uh three thousand per animal for fats for what are called fats fat cattle today um yeah three thousand bucks per uh times five that's that's fifteen million dollars a day that's just one plant that's just one plant fifteen million dollars a day well imagine imagine if that would drop to uh two thousand dollars from three thousand and they were only paying two thousand that that would drop that would drop five million dollars a day in their um in their input cost their their cost cost it was called cost of goods in accounting um and and so uh and and that's just that's just one plan you know and there are uh a a number of these but yeah certainly labor labor has gone up and and the fact is Cena you know when we talk about I mean the whole you know uh food prices the the affordability thing the fact is that the the um the 2020 uh bailout you know stimulus package and then biden's you know of whatever his stimulus package was the point is that from 2020 to 2025 in that five year period our money supply has increased 40 without any increase in products and services so if right now if in 2025 if your take home paycheck is not 40% higher than it was in 2020 you've gone backwards financially so so so it it's it the the the the real culprit here that nobody wants to blame is the government spending they just they just print this money out of thin air and so you've got you've got more dollars just being created out of thin air um without goods and services to support them normally you know i i if you have a stable money supply an honest and uh um uh an authentic money supply the the money only expands it it gets spent into service by services and products that that's what generates the new demand for for new money in this case we've just flooded the country with money without commensurate product and services and so all those dollars have become devalued they that they they're in less value and so the culprit here is is government spending i mean yeah we can talk about labor we can talk about transport we can talk about all sorts of things but but the real culprit is this runaway government spending which that's another topic for another day but you know we're we are now at the eight billion dollars a day just on interest this year this year the interest is going to eclipse our whole defense spending budget wow so we're we're spending more on interest than we are on the military that'll happen this year i mean we're we're we're we're we're prof we're we're just we're just a profligate country we're you know um we're out of control wow well i might be wrong but i don't think that um the trump's investigation is gonna come back saying oh the problem is government spending you are exactly right cena i can guarantee you because the because trump trump's a big spender too you know he's he he he's he's been a high roller all of his life and um and and and you know has made some good decisions and some bad decisions and um you know I don't think he's I don't think he's evil but I think he I think he uh he doesn't mind paying the playing the roulette table and um and and this is this is the roulette table with you know with our lives and and our and our and our savings and you know the the um you know the the authenticity of our money supply so well well that's a way to end it on a downer Joel.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_02: So so well so so what you want to be so what you want to be is you want to um as much as you can live in a parallel universe and so you want you want to um invest in things that are real and um that may mean you know real estate you want to invest in your health that's real you want to um you know you want to invest in your own um knowledge and education to be able to be uh astute and observant and prescient um as things happen that's where you you know that's where you invest and um and and then your local farmer who you trust because then you can avoid cloned meat and you could potentially have uh your own food supply that is more resilient you know to these complications that's happening with the pig meat packers that's right that's I had to throw a plug in there for you yeah yeah yeah all right so so thanks for listening with us today so question question how about this um have you have you uh reduced your beef purchases in the last six months as beef prices have increased um have you reduced your purchases of beef and if so what are you substituting for it I just think it'd be interesting to kind of know how people are how people are going.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes but but you know with that without regard to any of that uh we're still building uh spending billions and billions of dollars gambling on NFL football games so um you know un until that until that goes I'm not sure how I'm not sure how how dire our straights are oh yeah so priorities no joel don't ask us to you know reorder our priorities I need that phone and you know it's way too difficult way too difficult well listen everybody thanks for joining us on another kind of freewheeling uh uh podcast of Beyond Labels we love you to death we thank you for being with us and we hope this has been um helpful and you'll be able to think through better uh you know the different things that are going on in our in our country we'll see you next week on Beyond Labels