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Real meat is for real Americans, while the stuff made from plants is touted by “coastal billionaires,” Pillen’s campaign . The same message lit up right-wing media last year when the Daily Mail speculated — with zero evidence — that President Joe Biden’s climate change plan might limit red meat consumption. (What became the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed a year and a half later, didn’t touch meat; ensuring an abundant, cheap meat supply is a goal that still has in the US.)
The message resurfaced this summer when Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene nonsensically that the government was going to surveil and “zap” people who eat cheeseburgers. Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who served as the White House physician for five years and who won reelection last week along with Greene, “I will NEVER eat one of those FAKE burgers made in a LAB. Eat too many and you’ll turn into a SOCIALIST DEMOCRAT. Real BEEF for me!!”I will NEVER eat one of those FAKE burgers made in a LAB. Eat too many and you’ll turn into a SOCIALIST DEMOCRAT. Real BEEF for me!!— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX)
Agriculture accounts for a of global greenhouse gas emissions, with meat, dairy, and eggs making up the bulk of those emissions. And farmers won’t be spared from the effects of a changing climate. Extreme weather events, like droughts, wildfires, and floods, can . and changing ecosystems lower livestock productivity, reduce crop yields, and degrade nutritional quality.
Dragging plant-based meat into the culture war could also hurt Nebraska farmers’ bottom line in another way: The state is devoting more acreage to crops that go into plant-based meat. Late last year, the ingredient company Puris, which subcontracts for Beyond Meat, it had increased pea production in Nebraska by 81 percent from 2019 to 2021 and expected further growth in the state. (The farmer interviewed also raises cattle and joked that he’s grabbing “both of these markets.”)
Nebraska is also a leader in , a longtime staple of plant-based products. Johnathan Hladik, policy director for the Center for Rural Affairs — a Nebraska-based nonprofit that works to improve quality of life for small farmers and rural citizens — said farmers in the state don’t see plant-based meat as a significant threat. “It might be a humorous line in a conversation or a political punchline that gets good laughs and cheers,” he told me. “I don’t hear anybody having serious conversations about it.” Hladik’s family farms corn, soybeans, and cattle, and he raises animals himself that he sells directly to consumers.:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24198469/AP22018680695943.jpg)
According to Graham Christensen, a corn and soybean farmer and the head of a renewable energy company in Nebraska, plant-based meat and other issues — like state agriculture regulation, the EPA’s clean water rule, and the Biden administration’s conservation programs — are trotted out as boogeymen to distract from problems wrought by large meat producers like the governor-elect.
“This is a psychological scheme that has been deployed over and over on good rural Nebraska people and beyond, in order to allow business to go forward as is,” said Christensen, who isn’t a fan of plant-based meat but agrees the US needs to cut back on meat consumption. What most worries farmers and advocates like Hladik and Christensen, more than the rise of plant-based meat, is the of the meat and feed industries, which has squeezed out smaller farmers, as well as the scourge of and across the Midwest that’s been caused largely by industrialized agriculture. Pillen, who has inveighed against and “the assault on modern agriculture,” is unlikely to address either. Pillen’s not wrong that what he calls modern agriculture, a euphemism for large-scale, industrialized animal agriculture, is under attack. But in Nebraska, it’s not necessarily from the specter of plant-based meat or the Biden administration, which has largely taken the same hands-off approach to agricultural pollution that Pillen advocates. Rather, it’s often from Nebraskans angry that their state government has known about its water pollution problem for decades and has only allowed it to .“Don’t tell me how to farm”
Nebraska is home to around 100 million farmed animals, fattened up with a lot of corn and soybeans. An even of the state’s corn production goes to make ethanol that’s blended with gasoline, which is an inefficient use of land. Most farmers apply nitrogen-based fertilizers to make the corn and soybeans grow as big and fast as possible, which means they usually need less land to grow more feed than organic farmers — a good thing. But the synthetic fertilizer comes with a steep public health toll: Nitrogen from fertilizer leaks out as nitrate into groundwater, which some of Nebraskans rely on for drinking water. have found that areas with high nitrate levels have higher rates of childhood cancer and birth defects, and high nitrate levels are linked to and . Rain, as well as water used to irrigate crops, also carries nitrogen off the land and into rivers and streams, which can and pollute waterways. The other major source of nitrogen pollution comes from farmed animals themselves. Farmers spread their manure onto crops as a natural fertilizer, but some of it — like the synthetic stuff — leaches into waterways and groundwater.:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24197186/AP751768963499.jpg)
According to a damning recent by the Flatwater Free Press, 59 of Nebraska’s 500 or so public water systems have violated the EPA’s nitrate limit of 10 parts per million since 2010 — a limit is still unsafe for children.
There are some practical, win-win solutions that Christensen and Hladik would like to see farmers take up to reduce nitrogen pollution, like planting trees and shrubs between cropland and waterways to prevent nitrate runoff, and cover-cropping — planting certain crops alongside corn and soy that can absorb nitrogen or reduce reliance on fertilizer. Silvia Secchi, a natural resource economist at the University of Iowa, told me the benefits of these practices will be limited because they’re voluntary and most farmers will only employ them if they get subsidies, which come and go. Secchi, Christensen, and Hladik all agree that what’s really needed is regulatory activity and enforcement, such as improving water pollution monitoring and testing, permitting livestock farms so they’re further from homes and schools, fining repeat polluters, and requiring farmers to better manage manure. But given the meat and animal feed producers wield in the state, it’s a lot to hope for, even at the local level. Nebraska has 23 natural resource districts, or NRDs — local governmental bodies made up of elected boards with the goal of improving water quality (among other issues). One elected NRD member, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, told me most NRDs are stacked with farmers or others involved in agriculture who resist reform. “I hear this almost every board meeting: ‘Don’t tell me how to farm,’” they told me. The NRDs also have little to no enforcement authority: they can issue cease-and-desist orders that, if violated, can result in fines. The Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy (NDEE) has more authority, but Hladik said it’s underfunded and understaffed. Even if it had people and money, it would need a mandate from the governor to clean up Nebraska’s wells and waterways. So far, that hasn’t come to pass; neither the NDEE nor any of Nebraska’s 23 NRDs have a cease-and-desist order or fine for excessive nitrogen fertilizer or manure application, according to the Flatwater Free Press. Meanwhile, cities, towns, and individuals have spent millions to treat water.Water quality will likely worsen in the coming years, as Costco recently set up and an enormous slaughter complex in the state to raise and process nearly 100 million chickens each year.
The Nebraska Association of Resources Districts did not respond to an interview request for this story. NDEE, responding to a request for comment, said in an emailed statement that it is “committed to an integrated approach to nutrient reduction that incorporates science-based and cost-effective targeted management practices” and that it “adheres to state statutory requirements and enacts regulatory authority through the department’s rules and regulations.”:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24197201/GettyImages_831729236.jpg)