I've been away at the ranch ...but I'm back and slogging through my emails and I thank each and every one of you for the interesting links that I've received.
Let's get to the best of the best:
Of course, the Great Argentine Beef Boycott is first and foremost. As I've said before, even though I am a rancher, I support anyone here in Argentina that boycotts the beef that is sold in supermercados and carnecerías and restaurants. Why? Because it generally sucks and costs way too much! Generally, that is.
If you look hard ...and get lucky ...you can still find great Argentine beef here that still has that "Taste that made Buenos Aires Famous." My investigations have led me to the conclusion that there is virtually NO grass-fed beef available to the average consumer anymore. High-end restaurants will begin to suffer soon ...if they have not already.
Every steak you eat in Argentina has now been "finished" to one degree or another on grain of some kind; that degree, of course, is crucial.
My grass-fed cattle love grain just like every cow in the world does. However, cows will not eat an exclusively grain-based diet... unless they are confined to an area where nothing else is available. Today, finding a steak from an animal in Argentina that has not been confined for some or most of its life to one of those stinky prison-camp feedlots for some, all, or most of its existence has become as difficult as it is in the United States. Such is progress, I suppose ...but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
My friend, Jamye of studiodio, suggested a few months back that you should "Ask Your Waiter" whether your pricey bife was from a feedlot. I agree that it might raise some consciousness regarding the loss of one of the great things about Argentina. Now, I'm thinking that a boycott of beef might even be a better way to rid us of "trash beef" and help us return to the fine bifes that have made Argentina synonymous with the very best.
A boycott will take money out of my pocket, to be sure.
But it just might lead us beef producers back from the brink of globalized, factory-farm disaster. We ranchers have provided Argentina and the world with the cheapest and best beef on earth for about 100 years. We can do it again if we can stop this trend toward centralized cow concentration-camps that do nothing but enrich intermediary corporations that can control ...and be controlled ...at the expense of those that actually produce fine Argentine cattle.
First up: http://myflyoverzone.blogetery.com/ What a weird blog! It looks like a robo-blog ...but the posts regarding grass-fed cattle are splendid. Maybe it will turn into something more identifiable in the future.
Next up: http://www.laprensasa.com La Prensa apparently has a new web section that is in English! That's a great resource for those of us who want to know more but haven't yet sharpened our castellano skills.
A website called onepennysheet has a great article on how the priciest steak houses in the US are still serving factory-farmed beef. I liked this article because it reminded me that the best joints in Buenos Aires can't be far behind.
The Latin-American Herald Tribune has become a good read recently. And their article on the beef boycott gives a good if short account regarding why beef is suddenly in short-supply in the biggest beef eating nation on earth.
SiloBreaker is new to me... and I'm not quite sure that they are agro concerned despite their name. But this link and the stories that it links to ...makes me want to check-in with them again in the future.
Feedstuffs, on the other hand, seems to be concerned with food production. Their press-release here regarding foreign investment in even more feedlots here in Argentina ...feeds my private conspiracy theory that an effort is afoot to consolidate the beef producers here into a US-style conglomeration that can be milked for political contribution. (Today in Argentina, 83% of all beef producers earn less than 3000 pesos per month ..many earn much, much less. A long shot from "oligarch" status ...and prime targets to be gobbled-up by well-funded multinationals.)
Finally, there is this from LaPoliticaOnline (en castellano) that details plans to import beef from Brazil into Argentina. Friends, importing beef from Uruguay is one thing ...but importing from Brazil is completely another.
That really is crucial:
Argentine ranchers labor and have labored under a lot of restrictions and price-controls for many years; we've done our best and we can continue to do well if things are allowed to improve for us.
But no matter what your "free-market" sympathies are, for La Argentina to suppress/regulate/control her own ranchers, as is her sovereign right ...and at the same time allow unsuppressed/unregulated/uncontrolled beef imports from abroad ...is to spell disaster for what is perhaps the greatest beef producing nation on this planet. Foreign producers will be allowed, without domestic restrictions, to sell into the Argentine market ...while our own producers will shrink.
I cannot fathom why Argentina would allow their very own beef producers to be paid less than Uruguayan or Brazilian producers invited to sell into our country. Unless the goal is to destroy the 83% of Argentine beef producers that earn less than 3000 pesos per month in favor of consolidating the industry into a US-style conglomerate that can be milked for political contributions.
More to come. Stay tuned.
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