The Year in Argentine Beef 2010: Good Luck Finding Grass-fed Beef in Argentina; It´s All Feedlot Now.

This is astonishing news ...and I don´t blame you if you do not believe me... but your chances of finding real, grass-fed beef in Argentina are almost nil.

My most popular post of all time on this blog is this one from 2009: more than a year later, it receives hundreds of page views every month.

On facebook, there´s a lot of activity on another recent post regarding the state of Argentine beef, too.

Right now, as we speak (and eat) no one in Buenos Aires knows where to find a real cut of grass-fed Argentine beef ...anywhere ...at any price. 

In fact, the more you pay for a steak, the LESS likely it will be from anywhere other than a confinment operation (feedlot, cowshwitz.)

Confusing?  Yes, it is.

IF (and this is a big "if") your butcher or waiter or restauranteur CAN answer the question at all ...he will, most likely, tell you that the beef is "finished", terminada with corn.  That should indicate that a grass-fed animal was fed corn for a period before slaughter in order to gain weight and "improve" the meat. Problem is that the term "finished" has lost all meaning ...and Argentine beef has lost all its prized flavor ...and consumers have lost-out completely.

If a calf has EVER eaten a blade of grass in its life, it is called "finished on grain."

"If I pay more, can I haz real Argentine beef like 5 years ago?"  Answer: nope.

In fact, the tonier the venue, from big supermarket chain to Puerto Madero restaurant, your chances of diving into a thick hunk of grass-fed beef become even less likely.

Full disclosure:  real Argentine beef is not for everyone ...especially yanquis.  Anyone raised on good ol' Iowa Corn-fed Beef is liable to have had problems with steaks in Buenos Aires.  What Iowa calls "tender", we call "mushy."  What we call "flavorful", they call "gamey."  What they might call "savory", we call "greasy."

I´ve always praised the occasional honest foreigner for saying that they simply do not enjoy Argentine beef; there is enough of a difference that the two groups don´t generally overlap very much.

With locals, there seems to be a different dynamic.  Along the lines of yanquis and their own particular national patrimony, cheap gasoline.  The attitude here seems to be "if I can fill my belly readily and relatively cheaply, everything is cool.  Corn-fed beef for Argentines could be having an additional effect: the meat is less chewy and has some tasty fat, something that grass-fed beef could rarely provide and was prized among many.

When I first tasted Argentine beef, I was struck by a beefy flavor that I imagined my grandfather might have encountered in the US.  The question now is: will Argentines come to miss the flavor that is within the living memory of everyone.

Now, it must be said that real Argentine beef still exists!  It´s just getting impossible to find on your plate!  My missus and I raise it, Frances Perry Pichon has neighbors that raise it, but if you were to seek it out ...it would be difficult, nigh onto impossible, to find.

Why?  Because the major chains have now have their own supply-chains ...and they rely on the dependable feedlot operations ...and their customers don´t seem to care or, perhaps, have forgotten the fabled taste of old.

The major restaurants sling big steaks (from those reliable sources) to customers who have rarely, if ever, experienced free-range beef ...they may not be amazed like tourists of old ...but the steaks are as good or better than the best back in Des Moines, etc.  As to their being worthy of writing home about, however, I think that they will only note that the enormous slab was cheap ...and the malbec was great.  Ho-hum beef could become a boon for the Argentine wine industry.

On the bright side, feedlot operations are struggling.  Their subsidies have petered-out and many of them borrowed heavily against those checks that never came.

As well, feedlots are experiencing a shortage of feeder cattle as the remaining ranchers become fewer and  either charge much more for beef on the hoof ...or begin to take advantage of the much higher cattle prices to fatten their cattle on their own grass.  But not every cattle rancher can afford to "skip a payday" and not sell to the feedlots that have become the only buyers other than the slaughterhouses.

Maybe more grass-fed ranchers can go to market directly, thereby increasing your chance of receiving a cut of beef like the old days.

Most probably, however, it will be much more "miss" than "hit" for seekers of the beef that made Argentina famous ...and only then in places far from Buenos Aires' Capital.

The Year in Argentine Beef - 2011

(...more on argentine beef, here)

It´s the Argentine National Day of the Gaucho!  What better time to look back on the state of the Argentine National Dish: Grass-fed, Free-range BEEF?

Was it a good year?  I guess it depends on whose ox was gored in 2011.

Supplies of any kind of Argentine beef are down.  Prices for beef ...from on-the-hoof to your supermercado ...are up.  Grass-fed, no-grain beef is disappearing rapidly while feedlot beef takes the day over and over again.

The number of cattle in Argentina continued to drop in 2011 ...20% in just in the last 4 years.  At the same time, the number of cattle that went to slaughter went up 10% from last year's incredible, historic lows.  What´s that mean?  Answer: fewer and fewer cattle and cattle-ranchers in Argentina.

Why are the numbers of cattle dropping?  Answer: the irresistible pull and profit from soy.  Raising free-range cattle is not all that complicated, as you might imagine.  However, growing genetically modified soy is so simple that it is often referred to as "the farmer-less farm."  You spray, you plant, you spray again, you wait, you harvest ...then sell at historically high prices.  The local saying is, "most of the soya in Argentina is planted in Buenos Aires ...by telephone."  You can literally "phone it in" ...and reap big profits even when soy exports are taxed at 35%.

What´s a cattleman to do?  Switch to soy.  It´s a no-brainer.  The money is so big that you can´t say no to it.  It´s the "offer you can´t refuse" especially when an outside company offers to pay you in advance, in US dollars, to plow-up your pastures.  You don´t care if the crop fails ...you already got paid in hard cash ...but your pasture and your herd are gone.

For cattlemen who have resisted soy´s siren song ...there is a consolation prize: prices of live cattle continue to rise.  Within the last four years, cattle prices have quadrupled for the most sought after categories.

But those live-cattle prices are the same for both feedlot producers and the remaining traditional free-range ranchers.  As such, there really is no economic reason for grass-fed ranchers to continue.  2011 did not see the emergence of "boutique meat" or any sort of premium for ranchers who continue avoid feeding their cattle anything but grass.

For that reason, as much as any other, only 20% of beef in Argentina came from all-grass ranches in 2011 ...down from virtually 100% in 1993.

My contacts in the meatpacking industry, however, inform me that there actually is a premium for what little grass-fed beef remaining in Argentina.  High-end steakhouses in Buenos Aires entice their suppliers to steer any obviously grass-fed beef to their restaurants.  In 2011, supplies of grass-fed beef even to those well-heeled establishments fell short.  For about a month this year, bife de lomo (filet mignon) of any kind was almost impossible to find anywhere.

The old saying from the commodity traders in Chicago is, "high prices cure high prices," meaning that if the price of beef is at an all-time high ...beef production will inevitably rise as investors enter that market in search of those high returns.  However, beef cattle has a natural cycle that is different from soy, corn, or household appliances.

Pastureland is economically easy to convert to grain production.  However, once converted to grain, it is a difficult proposition to revert to pasture.  A soy farmer, for example, would have to "give up an annual payday" harvest to wait for grass to return.  Even then, to populate his newly returned pasture with cattle is difficult because the price of live cattle is so very high now.  No one appears willing this year to give up a year´s soy profits in order to grow grass for cattle for which they will have to pay record prices ...then wait a year to send the calves to feed lots ...or the 3 years to fatten the cattle on grass.  Future free-range beef will no doubt come from those small and medium ranchers who have not given-up the method.  Expansion of beef production in Argentina doesn´t seem to be in the cards in the near term.

To add insult to the injury which the beef industry has felt this year, Argentines are turning away from their national dish due to its high price.  Argentines consumed a whopping 216 pounds of beef per person in 1958.  This year, the average may end up being about 100 pounds.  In 2011, beef consumption dropped 25% from the year before.  The title of "beef-eatingest nation" fell to Uruguay last year and remains so.

World-class beef in Argentina was as much of the national patrimony as cheap gasoline is for US citizens.  No one I know would have imagined either disappearing without a major expression of discontent.  As it has happened in 2011, Argentines have not complained in any notable fashion.  My opinion is that all the beef available outside the toniest restaurants ...just isn´t as satisfying as it used to be anyway.

Are exports sucking-up all the good stuff?  Not a chance.  I have not seen export figures for this year yet.  However, 2010's figures were the lowest in a decade.  Nothing has convinced me that the 2011 figures will not follow that trend.  We´ll see.

Once the PBR of a proud people, the reknowned Argentine beef (even feedlot beef) has become akin to champagne in 2011.

Your Argentine Meat Team is in Big Trouble ...Beef in Argentina Today

All parts of the Argentine economy that produce beef are in big trouble right now ...and it´s not going to get any better for a long time.  It´s time for a long post!

Quality:
As I reported about a year ago in these pages, feedlot beef continues to increase its market share to the point where, this year, I have no idea where you can find a grass fed steak in Argentina.

If you like good ol' Iowa corn-fed beef, you're in luck!  If, however, you travelled 10,000km to have that chewy, screamingly beefy goodness ...I´m afraid you are too late.  Real grass-fed beef still exists in Argentina ...but the only way that I actually know that is because my missus and I still raise them.

We don´t get a higher price for them in the market, however ...so our lovely steers just go into the system and get sold side-by-side all along the chain with mushy, greasy, antibiotic laden feedlot beef.

I would like to report this year a percentage figure for feedlot beef ...but I can´t.  I simply can´t find anyone who is doing it anymore ...and I´m a rancher in the famous pampas with lots of rancher friends!

Quantity:
The number of beef cattle has shrunk by about 21% over the last 3 years.  OK, maybe it was too high to begin with ...but now, it´s too low.

"Too low for what?", you ask... too low to keep Argentina as the biggest beef eating nation on earth, too low to keep all the meat packing plants in business, too low to maintain exports, and too low to keep prices low.

Uruguayans are suspected to now be the beef eatingest people on the planet.  Argentinos who can afford it are still eating beef as usual.  Argentines who cannot (the vast majority) are having beef-less days ...long gone are the days of local construction workers building a lunchtime fire to roast beef ribs.

But pork and chicken production here has always been dwarfed by that of carne de vaca and doesn´t offer much of a low-cost alternative.  In fact, when the president mentioned the aphrodisiacal properties of pork, pig producers shuddered ...there simply are not enough pigs or chickens in Argentina to compensate for a major switch to other meats.

About 5% of meat packing plants here have shut their doors.  Many if not most of the other packers have reduced their output and workers.  Almost all of the plants are either up for sale or could be very soon.

With Argentine beef production down about 24% this year alone, there's just not enough cattle in the pipeline to keep the big plants working at an efficient level.  Smaller, more efficient plants might be indicated ...but who is going to invest big money in Argentine beef at this point?

Exports of beef today from Argentina are a catastrophe.  At the close of this year, Argentina will have exported half of the amount from 2009 ...maybe less.  That might make 2010 the worst year in Argentine history.  Who cares?  Maybe everybody on the planet that eats beef ...and maybe everyone in this country.

This is even today a very agricultural country ...and with more arable land per person than almost anywhere ...agriculture becomes more important to the world.  The resultant drop in euros, pounds, and dollars will affect everyone who both lives and earns here. 

Something to keep in mind:  there´s 2 kinds of beef exports.  Canned beef is one thing.  Fresh beef is another.  Soups, stews, corned beef, beef extracts ...even pet food ...is cheap and has a long shelf life.  Fresh cuts of beef... especially yummy steaks and roasts are another.

Much the way God created whiskey in order to keep the Irish from taking over the world, man created the Hilton Quota to keep Argentines from putting every other cattleman out of business.

20th century US cattlemen lived in dire fear of the capacity of Argentina becoming the world's low cost producer of fine quality cuts of beef.  To this day, fresh cuts of Argentine beef are not allowed into the US.

The Hilton Quota is a European tariff to spread the allowed amounts of imports across the great beef exporting countries of the world (most countries don´t have excess beef for export.)  When I first began ranching in Argentina, the cry here was for Europe to increase Argentina's share of that lucrative quota.  Today, Argentina cannot find enough cattle to even fulfill the amount allowed to her.

Due to the lack of beef available for export, Argentina is losing international customers to other countries.  Some of those customers will never come back.  That makes the possibility of a rebound in beef production here even less likely to occur for some time.

Price:
Prices are already at all-time highs.  My missus and I kept our cattle when everyone else was "gittin' out the cow bidness" more out of spite than good business sense.  We simply refused to sell at firesale prices during the time when it seemed that everyone was getting out.  We were lucky;  we had the resources to refuse.

We now receive about 3 times more for cattle on the hoof than last year ...only because we have cattle and almost no one else does.  That encourages us to continue to raise traditional grass-fed Argentine cattle to full market weight.

Those prices are not transmitted directly to the supermarket, though.  We ranchers have been sucking it up for years.  Now, the meatpackers are lowering their profit margins.  Your local butcher or supermercado has been making less income from the sale of a steak for a long time because he doesn´t want to scare you off permanently from buying beef.  Restauranteurs have a bigger price margin ...so their prices are not 3 times much as a year ago.

How long can this last?
I´ve said that we can expect this ...and worse ...for the next 3 years.  That´s probably because I can´t see farther than three years!  A recent university study here, though, says that cattle production won´t recover for 10 years.

It takes a lot of time and money to rebuild a herd of cattle.

Even worse, converting pastureland to crops is very easy compared to converting cropland to cattle pasture.

To change your pasture to crops only takes a tractor, a lot of chemicals, and widely available and affordable seeds.

To change your soybean field to cow pasture, however, means grass-seed that is just as expensive as soy-seed ...passing up a harvest season of soy ...and having to buy cows that are already terribly expensive due to the cattle shortage.

In short: not gonna happen.

What´s gonna happen, then?
Since I´m apparently in the prediction mode, I´ll try my hand at the future:  cattle producers will attempt to rebuild their remaining herds as best they can with their limited resources and their uncertainty.

Some cropland in Argentina will go out of production because some of it was never very suitable for crops in the first place.  That land will go back to natural pasture (full of weeds) ...or could be sown with seeds of natural pasture grasses on a risky, expensive bet that current owners of cows will come to rent it for grazing.

Some cropland will go back to both pasture and cattle ...if their owners are willing to buy expensive pasture seed, very expensive cows and bulls, and wait until calves are produced.  That scenario will take lots of money, time, and balls of titanium.  All in short supply nowadays.

In the meantime, cattle producers like my missus and I will enjoy prices unheard of in Argentina ...at least until people stop eating so much beef here, until Argentina's export markets dry up, until so many meatpacking plants close that we have to slaughter them ourselves for sale (against the law.)

What could happen, however, is that two market streams could develop:  one for feedlot cattle (that´s not going to go away) ...and another for the famous traditional Argentine grass-fed beef.  That might reward those ranchers that keep the great national patrimony enough to keep it going.

As it is, even my missus and I could still be persuaded to get out of the cow bidness.

We´ll see.

The Year in Beef from Argentina!

This post is TOO LONG!  But it's chock-full of beefy goodness.  I hope you enjoy.

So much news!  So little time.  With the mid-fiestas lull in the events, my chance has arrived to update you on the state of Argentine beef.

For beef lovers, the state of the national dish is bad.

The past week or so has been chock-full of major developments in food producing.  I don't think there has been a more eventful week in Argentine beef ...and I'm including the big farm strike of a couple two tree years ago.

So let's get crackin'.

I can't speak for the causality ...but you can chart all the recent big doin's from two weeks ago when the NYT published an article in their Montevideo Journal.  It's a primer good enough to warrant your re-reading.

A day or two after reading that article, I found myself in my favorite road-side parilla on a trip to our ranch.  It's too far from Buenos Aires to recommend the trip ...but for my wife and me, there's no place in Capital that can touch it for the real flavor of Argentine beef.  All the cuts are lovingly prepared más o menos in the open air by a bald-headed fireplug of a man with the face of a cherub known only as Palomo.

The asado was disappointing.  Worse, it was about the third disappointment in almost as many recent visits.  The beef although beautifully prepared and tender just didn't satisfy.  We ordered more hoping against hope that it was an aberation.  I reached for the salt shaker two more times.  I even applied some black pepper.  Still no dice, nothing I could do would make this meat scream "BEEF" in my mouth the way it should.  Most disturbingly, the morsels of lean were swaddled and slathered in big layers of fat.  This was feedlot beef.

"Palomo, what is this?  Feedlot beef?"

He shook his head,"it's all feedlot beef now. I don't even eat the stuff anymore.  Nowadays, I eat chicken."

WTF?  My favorite asador in my favorite parrilla tells me he's a chicken eater? 

It had to be true, though.  I don't know of anyone, except my wife and I, that still produces grass-fed cattle.  I should know at least a few, but I don't.  In fact, I don't know all that many beef producers anymore.

A drive of 300km into the center of the province used to show you herds and herds of Aberdeen Angus cattle.  Now the sight is a bit of a rarity.  More freaky is the sight of fields of lush natural pasture ...with no cows.  That never used to happen.

This last year has been the worst in half a century for ranchers in Argentina, bar none, according to the experts.

You won't find a smoking gun or "lone assailant" in your search for the reason why.  When complex systems go down, it's never due to any one particular reason.

1. The worst drought in a half a century was a factor.  Depending on where, many herds were rushed off to slaughter before they starved to death.  Many did starve to death in the fields.  So many that it wasn't worth skinning them for their hides as the bottom has fallen out of the hide market.  You always could get someone to butcher your cattle for allowing them to keep the hides and innards.  Nowadays, the hide merchants are sitting on a six month inventory.

2. Price controls imposed on all levels of the industry trickled down to hurt ranchers the most, leaving cattlemen with the option of either getting out of the business or increasing the scale of their operations in order to cope with the low prices they now received per head.  Those restrictions combined with even earlier measures restricting the slaughter of animals below a legal weight had forced ranchers to keep cattle longer thus increasing their costs at the same time.

3. The price of grains on the world market skyrocketed at the same time.  Many ranchers converted their very best pastures to corn and soy, shrinking their herds onto whatever grass was left ...or just getting out of the cow business altogether.

4. Those who wanted to remain "grass-fed ranchers" found themselves selling exclusively to feedlots because their traditional buyers had all converted their "wintering pastures" to grain.  This consolidated the buying power of feedlot operators giving them more leverage to extract the lowest prices from ranchers.

5. Feedlot operators got into trouble, too.  With the record high prices for grains to feed their lots (not to mention the high overhead of blasting feedlot cattle with massive doses of imported anti-biotics) the only way they could make a profit was with the government subsidies.  Feedlot operators received financial support at first but, for many reasons, the checks stopped coming to most of them.  Many feedlot operators are now borrowing from banks in hopes that those back-payments will eventually arrive.

The result of the above cascade was slaughter, slaughter, and more slaughter.

At first, grass-fed beef flooded the cattle auctions as ranchers found it impossible to expand their economies of scale without either becoming feedlots themselves ...or by buying more pastureland which was now too expensive and/or unavailable from having been converted to high-paying grain production.  Beef from these ranchers may have constituted the last great wave of what we all came to love as Argentine beef.  Prices at auction for ranchers began to drop as the volume of cattle to market increased.

"Grain finished" beef, beef that was raised on grass for most of the animal's life but fattened on grain for the last part, then entered the market in a big way as even more ranchers decided to throw in the towel and feedlots ramped up production to take advantage of their economies of scale  The chance of prices recovering for ranchers was becoming nil under this scenario.

Corn-fed beef, from cattle raised almost exclusively on a non-grass diet is now taking the place of the above two catagories on grills and in supermarkets all over Argentina as traditional grass-fed beef is shrinking into non-existence.

Newsflash: Feedlot operators, however, are now having trouble keeping up with demand.  Their vital subsidies, at last report, are still slow in coming and their interest payments on money borrowed against those payments are due with regularity.  Prices for grain and imported antibiotics are still high.

Although statistics for 2009 show a robust year for cattle production in Argentina, there's a big problem.  Half of the more than 15 million cattle slaughtered this year have been females, a shockingly high percentage.  That figure alone means that beef production, from either grass or grain, will take a long time to recover.

Recovering lost beef production is always a long hard task.  In the current environment, however, it will be even more of a problem.

Once pasture is converted to cropland, it is an expensive proposition to convert it back.  So much so that it is hard to imagine it being done on any appreciable scale.

For example, if you were to consider converting a field of soy into pasture, you would have invest about the same amount of money in fertilizer, pesticide, and seed as you would to replant in a high-paying grain.  Add to that the "lost" harvest as you wait for the grass to be ready for cattle ...then the expense of buying cattle to eat it ...then waiting for the animal to fatten and/or reproduce ...and you begin to see quickly how pastureland never comes back. 

It especially looks like a losing proposition if there are no cattle to buy.

Newsflash: Argentina's national herd could drop to its lowest level in history.  Unless females are held back from the market this season, Argentina could end up with 50 million cows, down from a recent record high of more than 70 million.  Among that smaller herd are many animals still recovering from the drought making them poor candidates for pregnancy and weaning.

Retaining those animals will be an even more difficult decision in light of new higher prices making sale to slaughter even harder to resist.

Newsflash: A sudden drop in the number of cattle sent to auction just before Christmas sent prices up.  Female calves have been selling for about $3 pesos per kilo for years.  Prices have recently risen by 60%.

Newsflash: The Argentine commerce ministry sent price inspectors into the major meatpacking plants last week to enforce price restrictions on beef.

Newsflash: Argentina has stopped issuing permits for beef exportation in order to keep domestic beef supplies high for the holidays.




Analysis?  All-in-all a rough year for lovers of that beefy goodness that is synonymous with Argentina.  Something's got to give ...but, as of this writing, nobody knows quite what it will be.  Already, your asados are less tasty albeit as cheap and plentiful as ever.

What could bring back the days of that grass-fed flavor and healthfulness?  I can't think of anything.

In some ways, it is a natural progression: the grain-yields available to folks with agricultural lands since the Green Revolution have made grass-fed cattle a less and less attractive proposition.  Although shot-through with the necessity of spraying expensive poisons, growing genetically modified corn and soy also removed a lot of the risk of crop failure from farmers at the same time reducing their need for farm labor.  This effect of g.m. crops has sometimes been called the "farmerless farm" even further consolidating the hold of giant agribusiness.  A local saying reinforces this by inferring that gm soy and corn "are planted in downtown Buenos Aires ...by telephone."

In other ways, the production of the world-famous Argentine beef has been abandoned and/or deliberately thwarted.  Ranchers here have never asked for nor received protection from the marketplace ...but can't survive the combination of being subject to the controls deemed necessary for an industry deemed to be of national importance without some corresponding support.  Similar situations become political "footballs" for other nations, as well (think: cheap gasoline to yanquis ...or nationally produced rice for japanese) but those nations give something of a corresponding measure of support to their "national treasures."  Perhaps, Argentine beef is neither deemed necessary nor a national treasure but a political football it remains. 

The recent rise in beef prices could be a boon to those ranchers with grasslands too marginal for crops ...but grasslands that marginal probably don't stand much chance of fattening cattle to market weight.  Those ranchers will probably end up supplying young cattle to what will be left of the feedlot industry.

Grass-fed beef could become a "boutique industry" but only if the market can differentiate it from corn-fed.  As it stands today, my grass-fed beef goes into the food chain without any distinction ...in price, quality, or otherwise.  That could change in the coming year but for it to be possible there would have to be large-scale, widespread changes in the way that beef is allowed to go from farm to table.

My wife and I maintain our herd to this day in all their traditional, natural goodness.  We decided last year not to sell our beautiful black babies to the feedlots in favor of intensifying our grasslands toward fattening them to full market weight.  We can't sell them directly to you, however, so put away that possible solution to your obtaining the beef that you came here for.  The only help for us is help for everyone that has not yet abandoned the traditional ways.  Studiodio, suggested that we expats should all begin asking our waiters if the beef is grass-fed or feedlot.  On reflection, I haven't been able to think of a better way for consumers to move this marketplace.  If you've got some more ideas just let me know.

If you can forward and link to this post ...it might help get the word out.

I could have "beefed-up" every paragraph in this post to point of at least doubling it.  If I've done my job right, I've left you with more questions than answers.  Please feel free to send your questions regarding Argentine beef in the comments.  The coming year stands to be the most interesting since Pedro de Mendoza set his herd free into what could only be described as "cow heaven."

Grass-fed cattle will be focal point for this blog throughout 2010.

Happy New Year,
Mike

Yanqui Mike's Beef Roundup!

It's been a week of weirdness regarding that most delicious component of Argentine patrimony: The World's Best Grass Fed Beef.

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.

The Year in Argentine Beef - 2012

"Be it sweet, grassy, richly buttery, invigoratingly bloody, highly mineral, livery and gamy, tinged with a ripe and cheesy or long-hung farmyardy tang, steaks offer a full spectrum of interesting flavours. All of that wrapped up in one of life's primary savoury pleasure: a densely-charred exterior."

Wouldn´t it be wonderful if the above statement described steak in Buenos Aires ...instead of London. Sorry, fans of invigoratingly bloody, highly mineral, livery and gamy with a densely-charred exterior ...there is no more of that here in the land God gifted to cows.

On the bright side, if you love a great Iowa corn-fed steak, you´ll love the steaks on offer in parrillas large and small all over town.  Argentina's finest steak houses even list dry-aged steaks (unheard-of in the days of grass-fed beef) ...and if you hurry, you´ll love the price.  About half the price charged in Iowa.  (Better hurry in the US, as well.  Prices of beef there are due to skyrocket due to two years of drought strikingly similar to what happened in Argentina in 2008.)

In fact, it's now easier to find grass-fed beef in Iowa than in Buenos Aires!

The sad news is, however, that if you are looking for "that famous Argentine beef", it is nowhere to be found.

This beautiful city and wonderful country still has a million-and-one charms ...but the famous beef which was once a reason for visiting all by itself is now merely a memory.  A memory, that is, if you can remember it.

"The Famous Beef" was very different from the beef that most of the world is accustomed to.  So much so, in fact, that occasionally I would meet an honest meat-eater who would admit to not liking it.  La Carne Famosa lives on, however ...at least in the verbage of tourist touts, the lazy, and the confused/misinformed.

Full disclosure: My Missus and I make a very fine living supplying calves to the Argentine feedlot industry, thank you very much.  It's just that we haven't had a grass-fed steak in years, either ...and we miss it.  And with internal prices being competitive with export prices, we don´t fret much anymore about our beef not making it to tables around the world.

The biggest story about Argentine beef this year is one that even the disinterested may have heard: Argentina's counter-charge against the US in the WTO regarding the import restrictions we here currently are living with.

Specifically, Argentina has brought suit against the US practice of banning Argentine fresh beef and lemons (what rarely gets mentioned is that Argentina is one of the few countries on Earth to which the US exports more than it imports.)

No matter what the legitimacy of the complaint and counter-complaint, the kafkaesque thang is that the lemon crop here was devastated by weather ...and we really don´t have any beef to export.

In 2005 Argentina exported 771,400 tons of beef. In 2011 beef exports dropped to 300,000 tons ...and so far for 2012, we should come in about 30% even lower than last year.

It´s difficult to imagine how we might return to those days in which the world's greatest steak could be found on almost any block.  Until then, eat grass-fed steak in the US before you leave.  Then compare, contrast, and discuss.

40% of Argentine Beef already from Feedlots

(click here for a 2010 update on the state of Argentine Beef)

Using the above graphic (by far, the most popular yanqui mike graphic according to Sitemeter), I'm trying to represent how dire are the straits facing anyone who enjoys Argentina's finest contribution to gastronomy: grass-fed beef.

Via the lovely and talented 99, comes this and this article from La Nacion dealing with seemingly unstoppable (and, now, government supported) juggernaut of US-style feedlots emerging in the troubled beef producing sector here in Argentina.

At risk is not only your ability to savor one of Argentina's great pleasures but your ability to be safe from the myriad nastiness that comes from raising cattle in such inhumane conditions (enormous prophylactic doses of antibiotics, pollution of ground water, increased levels of fat and cholesterol, mushiness and greasiness of the meat from cattle that are no longer allowed to graze and forage and socialize with their friends and family, the use of other drugs ...such as beer! ...in order to help them cope with the psychological horror of literally living in their own shit.)

I'm not sure what anyone can do about this ...but there simply must be something.

Via Jayme of studioidio, came the suggestion that we (YOU!) as consumers could begin to be more insistent on the beef we all came here to eat. At first, I admitted to being a bit suspicious that Jayme's idea would have any affect. I soon began to see her idea as maybe the last bulwark against the disappearance of grass-fed beef here.

Greater Buenos Aires is home to about a third of Argentina's population (much like Greater London is home to about 1/3 of the UK's) and the home-base of virtually every tourist and expat.

Maybe you could "pepper" your butcher, your supermarket manager, ...and especially the owners of the expensive restaurants that we extranjeros tend to frequent ...with questions as to whether or not this is the beef that the tourist brochures PROMISED US!

Be prepared for pretty lies from all of the above purveyors ...but ask anyway.

The tourist sector here is really very responsive, especially in this world-wide downturn that we are all living through. Simply demonstrating by your question that the issue of real Argentine Beef is important enough to ask about ...could make the issue a hot topic of conversation among the restauranteurs and the meatpackers.

This could be an essential part of the effort to save at least some of natural beef goodness that has always been a big draw for Argentina.

The more well-heeled among us could easily do their part toward ensuring that real beef, at least remains available to those that care about such things ...simply by asking if the steaks that they pay for are traditional grass-fed Argentine beef.

It could also help all Argentines maintain a vestige of their patrimony not to mention helping the poor cows that have to live and die under those conditions.

Argentine Beef is Back?

Hello and happy 2013 to all you fans of sweet, grassy, richly buttery, invigoratingly bloody, highly mineral, livery and gamy, tinged with a ripe and cheesy full spectrum of interesting flavours all wrapped up in a densely-charred exterior!

I have good news.  Grass-fed Argentine beef is back.

Ahh, the vagueries and vicissitudes of life in Argentina!  Nobody rolls with the punches like an Argentine ...and now, apparently, it seems that you can't keep a good Argentine beefsteak down either.

Only 4 months ago, the Yanq was crying in his beer over the sad sorry sucky state of beef here in what was the Mecca of Meat, the Parrilla Paradise, the Rome of Roasting ...ok, I´ll stop: I Ate Grass-Fed Beef this Week!!!

Welcome to Workaround World where there's always a will and always a way.   

Here's the scoop:

Without revealing too many details, yer humble rancher-blogger was scouting a piece of pampasland for the over-flow of grass-fed cattle from our spread (My Missus won't let me eat any of "her babies.")  My gaucho had spotted a "small" spread nearby with so few cattle that he was certain the rancher must be losing money.  He suggested that we approach him and offer to rent the place.

Long story short, we offered to rent the land and were given the bum's rush.  No deal.  No way.

We couldn´t figger it out ...until we found out that he was a butcher!

Faithful readers will recall how I've been lamenting for a few years as to how all the beef in Argentina, in every restaurant, in every butchershop is all from feedlots.  City or campo, we haven´t had a good piece of beef for so long that we basically gave it up.  On those occasions when there was no alternative to beef, we steeled ourselves for the inevitable disappointment.

Well, we made a surreptious visit to Mr. Butcher-Rancher's carnecería for a whole beef tenderloin.  Lo and behold, after a turn on a blazing-hot cast iron skillet ...Meat of Memory!

Bring your adjectives, this was the real deal.  Keep in mind, the tenderloin or filet mignon or lomo is not known for being particularly flavorful under the best of conditions ...tender, yes ...but great beefy flavor generally generates more from just about any other cut.  No denying it ...this was grass-fed!

What gives?  How is it possible for grass-fed beef to be suddenly available after so long?

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going" should be the economic motto of Argentina.  I really shouldn't have been surprised.

Here's the explanation:

• 1st, soy and corn pushed grass-fed cattle off the pampas and into the feedlots.  
• 2nd, feedlot beef became the only beef available anywhere.
• 3rd, high grain prices and grain shortages pushed-up the price of feedlot beef.
• 4th, butchers began to lose customers to chicken, veggies, and pasta.
• 5th, not every acre of cattleland is suitable for soy and corn.
• 6th, small pieces of pastureland became available for rent very cheaply due to not being suitable for grain nor large enough for a cattle operation.
• 7th, those with slaughter, meatcutting, and retail facilites decided to cut-out the middleman (the feedlot) and are renting these small pieces of land very cheaply, raising the cattle the old-fashioned way.
• 8th, and best of all, they will sell that beef to you!

Now, none of this is strictly legal. HELL, it´s not even loosely legal!

Slaughtering cattle on your own land for anything other than your own personal consumption has been illegal since way-back in the days of Evita y Juan.  I would never do it ...I OWN my land and would be afraid of losing it in a criminal proceding.  I also don´t have any easy retail capability.  The butcher-ranchers, on the other hand, are only renting.  The only thing at risk is a classic Argentine butchershop that is headed the way of the payphone otherwise.

However!  If this sort of genius is what it takes to bring back the beef, I´m gonna start eating again and I'll raise my glass of malbec to anyone willing to run this runaround!

Conclusion: if you happen to be deep in the pampas, grass-fed beef is available again in small-town butchershops.

How long could it take before it makes its way to Capital?

Expect More Crap Reports like This:

"Best Steaks Coming Your Way: Beleaguered Argentine Beef Industry Set To Rebound"

THIS article comes from Forbes, no less.  Expect a lot of cheerleading from those who want you to believe that everything is getting better ...from real estate to stocks to bonds to... even Argentine beef.

Nine of its ten paragraphs, describe the horrors of producing beef in Argentina ...only its last paragraph describes how producers like me will make more money ...but as far as you consumers are concerned, get ready to pay even more for what should still be the Argentine national birthright.

My wife and I are going to be fine ...you, on the other hand, are going to be eating something other than beef on your Argentine asado unless you are willing to pay extraordinary prices.  Crazy stupid prices.

My wife and I are some of the very last people who produce real, honest to God, grass-fed beef.  If you are lucky, you´ll get some beef from a Cowschwitz, a confinement operation in which the animals are forced to live in their own, and other´s shit ...and are pumped full of antibiotics as a preventative measure against the entire operation going down to failure due to any sort of contagious disease.

Believe me; there is nothing to be found in Argentina other than corn-fed, antibiotic laden, mushy, fatty beef along the lines of Iowa Corn-Fed Beef found in the US.  If you are coming to Argentina to enjoy some of the legendary beef we used to produce ...forget it.  Order another bottle of our fine Malbec ...and just forget it.

Like everywhere else in the Américas, this last bastion of great natural grass-FINISHED beef has succumbed to King Corn.

Although my missus and I will not put our beautiful Aberdeen Angus through that feedlot process, we will not receive one centavo more than those that do.  Even though we sell our babies for slaughter, for your and our plates, we will not torture them.

They will, however, go into the same hopper as feedlot cattle ...so you will never be able to identify them from all the rest ...unless you insist of your butchers and your restaurants.  Tourists this year will go home disapointed and with no idea what previous arrivals were talking about when it comes to the exceptional beef this country has been famous for.

Cattle prices are high, nowadays, due to the shortage of beef on the hoof.  That helps my missus and I continue our efforts toward humane raising of animals.

But right now, in Argentina, you have a better chance of a "good" steak in Des Moines than Buenos Aires.

Don´t believe what you read in the papers.

Argentine Beef Exports Fall Again. Europe Couldn´t Care Less.

Yer faithful Rancher/Blogger reads the trades ...so you don´t have to!

Today's e-issue of EBLEX the organization of the English beef and sheep industry, reports that exports of Argentine beef have fallen even further.  At this point, our once-was powerhouse of beef exporting has become irrelevant to our former best customers, Europe.

In the darkest days of Argentine beef exports, 2001, when the world closed their markets to us because of an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease, we exported 43,000 tons of fresh and frozen beef (cooked/canned beef is a much cheaper, much lower margin product.)

Today, we export 29,000 tons.  In the 1980's we averaged about 250,000 tons per year.

Argentina's traditional customers in Europe have largely given-up on ever seeing it again ...they have moved-on to other providers.  If Argentina ever again begins to exports in significant quantities, it will be hard to win those customers back.

Charmingly, Europe thinks that we still produce the kind of grass-fed beef that can compete with premium UK beef.  News of our feedlots, apparently has not reached the other side of the pond either.

Feedlot Beef not Bad Enough for You?

I´m sure long-time readers are familiar enough with all the lovely accomodations at your local feedlot (prophylactic doses of antibiotics, confinement in feces, factory-trash food like broken potato chips and crackers and candies.)

Well, get ready for more Zombie Beef here in Argentina.

Nestled next to lush fields of genetically modified grains, the latest in monoculture is coming to a Cowshwitz near you: Cloned Beef.

"How´s that cloneburger gonna taste," you ask?  You won´t know the difference.

You ESPECIALLY won´t know the difference because no one is going to tell you.  Food companies hate labeling their cloned, genetically modified, and hormone injected products ...because they know you won´t buy them.  So what´s a poor multinational or lobbying group to do when faced with laws requiring them to tell you their frankenstein ingredients?  Simple ...they stop the laws from happening or make them go away.

"But can´t the non-clone producers simply put a Not Cloned label on their product?"  Well, if the milk hormone industry is any indicator, it looks like it´s pretty easy to get legislators to propose laws that make hormone-free lables illegal.

Get it?  Putting freak ingredients in food and not telling anyone: perfectly OK.  Not putting freak in food and telling everybody about it: go to jail.

Food labeling is at the heart of the Argentine beef cloning industry.  The European Union has been holding out against imports of meat or dairy from the descendents of cloned animals and is considering them only if clearly labeled.  The EU is also a leading buyer of Argentine beef.  For that reason, cloned cattle seem to be outside the food supply and general breeding stock in Argentina for the time being.  But Europe is also worried that cloned-meat labeling could start trade war at a time when recession could be on the horizon.  Expect them to cave-in on the issue of labeling.

The WSJ is reporting that there are less than 1000 cloned animals in the world right now but that "their numbers are rising and the costs falling" and Argentina is pushing to be the #1 cloner in the world.

So, is cloned beef safe to eat?  Probably ...who knows?  The best minds all say it is. Of course, the best minds all said it was perfectly safe to feed cattle beef by-products ...until the discovery of mad cow disease.

Is cloned beef cruel?  I suppose that there are crueler practices ...but only 10% of cloned beef cattle survive to viability.  Most are born deformed or susceptible to disease and die.  Detractors of cloned beef often cite very large birth weights in cloned calves resulting in complicated births that often require caesarian sectioning.

Is cloned beef ethical?  Tampering with the world food supply always makes me suspicious ...but what bothers me is that cloning shrinks the gene pool.  Only champion cattle are cloned and, while champions display the finest qualities of the breed, it what those champions don´t display that worries me.  If, for example, those champs are concealing a susceptibility to disease ...the worldwide herd could suffer a shock.

Least ethical of all, in my opinion, is the out-right refusal to tell the consumer what they are eating.  If you don´t want to buy cloned beef it should be a simple and transparent process:  the label should say if your steaks, roast, or ribs are cloned.  At very least, producers of non-cloned beef should be free to slap a big "Not Cloned" sticker on the package.

Argentina may import beef

That's right, fans of grass-fed beefy goodness. For the first time in history, the land of beef could be forced to import steaks and ribs and roasts just to meet the local demand of the biggest beef eaters on the planet. No more exporting beef, either. The story in yesterday's Clarin is as disorienting as "sending coal to Newcastle" or selling snow to eskimos.

Please don't blame me. Faithful readers will remember my worrying about beef production here and the low slaughter weight and sending mother cows to the carnecería in much greater numbers.

I can add a little something more to the story of beef here: I don't think that the traditional grass-fed beef really exists anymore in Argentina. At every auction we attended this season, there were no traditional "winterers" buying calves ...only the feedlot operators. And prices were so low that I can't count the number of cows that were sold for less than you would pay for a whole beef tenderloin.

Importing beef will be controversial enough ...but get ready for some bonus quilombo: Argentine beef producers are limited to an artificial low price in order to keep the cost of beef low to Argentine consumers. The price of foreign beef can't be controlled in the same way.

Will Argentina not only import beef ...but also pay foriegn producers more than they allow their own citizen producers to be paid?

via www.campodiario.com.ar: (hat tip to 99!)

"As production drops, Argentina could have to import beef for the first time in history.

A report circulating privately in the Government admits for the first time that Argentina may have to import beef in 2010, if its inhabitants continue to consume some 68 pounds annually per capita, the highest in the world. .

In the U.S., which remains on the list consumed 44 kilos per capita.

Specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture estimated that meat production in 2010 would fall to 2.67 million tons from 3.11 million expected this year. In this scenario there will be no meat for export. And it would be necessary to purchase some 1.000 tons abroad, to meet the consumption was estimated at 2.68 million tonnes.

The official report is very short but contains key figures to understand the magnitude of the crisis affecting livestock. It was prepared by the Directorate of Agrifood Markets and already reached the hands of the secretary and the minister Carlos Cheppi Débora Giorgi. Clarín, able to access a copy of the work, confirms the critical early stage by all private analysts, but so far denied by the Government.

What the report says? The current stock cattle, 55.3 million animals could retreat in 2010 to 47.9 million head, and hence meat production also fell sharply. The diminished the supply is about 438 thousand tons. The setback would be 14%.

The government agriculture experts do not address the causes of such a strong downturn; they simply limit themselves to producing the figures. Clearly, however, taking into account the fierce drought and other equally devastating phenomenon, which can't be addressed too much: the very policy of "stepping on" domestic prices and limiting exports discouraged cattle production, at the time gave a high domestic consumption. The high killing of females, over 50% of slaughter, gives an accurate account of this long liquidation process that began in 2006.

In this scenario, the report does not rule out the possible importation of beef in 2010 in order to supply the local market, as well as the disappearance of exportable balances. Argentina, which became the first beef exporter in the world five decades ago, would not only abandon its reputation but also the income from the sale abroad of some 450,000 tons of beef cuts. In 2008, foreign orders accounted for U.S. $ 1.500 million.

This projection was constructed without taking into account other variables such as average slaughter weight (currently 214 kilos on the hook) and the consumption of meat, which since 2007 has remained stable between 67 and 68 kilos per capita. This means that the shock scheduled for 2010 could be avoided by any of these ways: up the weight of the cattle that reach the refrigerator (and thus increase the production of meat) or to reduce the consumption of Argentines. The first alternative seems unlikely in the midst of a severe drought and the price of grains. The second option is politically and culturally very resisted.

Many private analysts had already figured that Argentina would import beef in the short term. But others, like the respected Ignacio Iriarte, don't believe that it will come to that. Rather, they consider that when higher prices occur they will act as brake on internal consumption. Although higher prices have already appeared, in relative terms, beef can remain competitive. That is: one kilo can cost $20, but yields more food than a pizza. Although pizza may be cheaper, beef could be worth twice the price."

Source: Clarín, May 12, 2009

Things to do with Argentine Beef

Back in the good ol' days of grass-fed, La Carne Argentina was so good that it was a sin to do anything but roast it over hardwood coals, salt it, and eat it.

Now that 80% of Argentine Beef comes from feedlots, what little flavor that remains could use a little help!

Since we yanquis have been giving feedlot beef a helping hand for about 60 years, it´s time to dust-off some time-honored recipes and put them to guilt-free use here in Buenos Aires.

Here´s something I´ve been working on this winter: 

beef barley soup

One of the magical things you can easily add to your cooking in Argentina is the flavor of the omni-present hardwood coals glowing away in every neighborhood parilla and sacred back-yard Sunday asados.

So next time you find yourself someplace where beef is being broiled, grab some asado de tira or vacio to go.

Tell them you want it "bien, bien asado."  You´re looking for the asador to really dry-out the meat, drip-off the fat, and get as much of that smokiness as possible.

If you´re not ready to cook, throw it in the freezer ...the smokiness will be just fine for a few days.

When you wake up one morning in the mood to cook, grab a good-sized pot and whip-up a mirepoix of that holy trinity of carrots, celery, and onions in equal amounts.  Whack them into pieces small enough to help them release their flavors.  Throw them in the pot with a pinch of salt and as much garlic as you like.  Fill the pot to the brim with water (you want a lot of broth.)  Proportions: about 1/3 vegetable matter, 2/3 water.  Bring to a boil then simmer for a little more than an hour.

When a taste of the veggies reveals that they have surrendered all or most of their flavors, strain your vegetable stock and discard them.

Now grab your well-roasted beef and trim-off the excess fat.  Feedlot beef is crazy stupid fatty ...you´ll need a little of that but get rid of any big, easily trimmed fat and you should be fine.  You can skim the congealed fat off the top of the soup later when it´s cooled if there is still too much.  However, that skimmed fat will contain a lot of the other flavors.  So it´s better to reduce the beef fat before you put it in the pot.  Use as much beef as you like and dice it fine or coarse...it will eventually disolve to a great degree.

Now that you have a pot of steaming stock and roasted beef... start thinking about what herbs you would like.  I´ve found that a judicious amount of thyme is great for this soup.  Rosemary is a nice touch as well.  I´d stay away from oregano for this soup but a touch of basil works.  Season it well as you will be diluting it a little later.

This soup cries out for black pepper.  Use a little more than you might normally.  I don´t know about you but I´ve found regular supermarket black pepper in Buenos Aires to be way better than in the US.  Black pepper and the charcoal flavor are perfect together and, as the fat renders, their harshness really mellows.

Mushrooms or mushroom powder really works well with this but are optional and I´d suggest that you not over-do it.  Next time out, I think I´ll braise some mushrooms in butter and red wine and throw them into the pot.  My next batch will definitely have a good splash of plonk!

Most likely, your pot will now be quite a bit less full after discarding the original veggies.  Fill it back up to the brim with water and let the whole shebang simmer for about an hour and a half.  Check on it every ½ hour or so and adjust your seasonings.

During this simmer, I suggest you add one of my secret Argentine ingredients:  Safra® extracto de carne.  It´s really strong and quite salty  ...so for your 3 liter pot, I´d start out with a ½ teaspoon then come back later and taste.  I really love this stuff but I respect it!  Use a spoon sterilized in the simmering broth and it will keep in your fridge forever.

After an hour and a half of simmering, you should be presented with a very brothy soup, redolent of all your seasonings and rich with the flavor of charred beef and black pepper, and mellowed with some beef fat.  You may well decide to eat it as-is!  A crunchy bâton from L'epi might do the trick.

For me, however, this soup is the perfect foil for pearled barley.  Keep in mind that the barley will expand to about 4x its uncooked size ...and take a lot of the broth with it.  For this reason, keep your concoction as brothy as possible and well seasoned in case you need to dilute it once the barley swells.  For a 3 liter pot, I´d only add two tablespoons of barley ...unless you are looking for a porridge rather than a soup.  Barley will need about an hour of good simmering.  When it´s tender, it´s done.  It will swell more and be more tender the next day.

Give it a try and let me know if this wonderfully hearty soup chases away the winter chill.

¡provecho!
Mike

The end of Argentine Beef as we know it?

This is truly sad news, fans of Carne Argentina.

I'm speaking to those fans of that lean, flavorful, organic-by-default, low LDL, high HDL, 1/3 the calories, no hormones, no antibiotics, crazy-good red stuff that puts everything to shame back home.

Please believe me. This is really happening:

I've spoken before of the crisis that exists for those here that persist in producing the traditional free-range grass-fed beef for which La República is so rightly famous... now my seeming rant is, lastimadamente, being noted even in the foreign press.

With the Kirchner administration's announcement that it will subsidize US-style feedlot beef, virtually every link in the food chain will be receiving assistance from the federal government except traditional beef producers.

Don't take my word for it...you can easily verify this yourself.

This is simply insult to injury when you consider that beef producers now operate under restrictions like NO other part of Argentine agriculture (slaughter-weight, export limits, price control campaigns, etc.)

Now with "free" corn for the US-style feedlot producers...the next big beef story may well be the droves of estancieros that will be putting their land to other uses. ANY other uses.

In fact, Mrs. Yanqui Mike and I are penning the last few details for a conversion of 100 to 300 hectares to corn or soy production. That will blow all of the organic bragging rights that we have for all of our cattle because of the close proximity to the agro-toxins that come with it.

The lovely Ms. TangoinherEyes once asked me, in response to a Gancia-flavored description of mine, why I don't explain more of the differences between Argentine beef and what we were all raised-on in Norte América.

I told her that I didn't think people would be very interested.

My Sitemeter, however, tells me otherwise. My traffic goes up in response to cow / beef / pampas posts.

Feedlot beef is disgusting, tastes bad, horrible for cows, and is bad for your health!

Leave me a comment if you want some more on this subject.

I am become farmer*...

A tremendous business deal negotiated by my wife to turn a substantial portion of the old homestead into cropland is about to be signed...

...but it's another sad chapter in the Argentine beef industry story.

Modern farming is nothing like traditional ranching; it's a poisonous affair not even counting the transgenic seed that will go into the ground (actually, the transgenic thing allows the plant to withstand even more poison than a "normal" plant... hence, less weeds and pests, more soya, corn, whatever.)

80% of our land is not even prime cropland but such is the worldwide demand for grain and oilseed that even we are in the crosshairs of Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill... and, baby, do they ever gots the hairs.

I was recounting the whole sad story to Sexy Spanish Club's husband, Tom Frost, at our party. This pressure is, obviously, irresistible to ranchers in a GOOD financial situation... what that means is it's a no-brainer, manna-from-heaven thang to your average Argentine rancher who, believe me, is not in a good position to resist any kind of cash flow.

We could have, would have resisted the temptation (I'm making excuses here... but they are heartfelt.) but we are faced with a ever-losing proposition raising one of your favorite things about Argentina.

Agriculture and the economy as a whole is under a heavy hand from government policies... most of which I agree with. However, all other sectors of agri-business at least get a "parting-gift" from the government in the way of some kind of subsidy for the added burden.

The beef sector gets more and more restricted without the sops that get thrown to everyone else. Even if there were no Argentine restrictions, world beef producers are subject to "the Hilton quota" which effectively keeps/kept Argentina from taking over the world in terms of prime, fresh cuts of restaurant-quality beef. So that means that even before this, ranchers here were under restrictions that nobody else was under.

I tend to think... and maybe you do too... that there is no other segment of agriculture with which Argentina is so identified as beef. That is not true. Actually we here produce practically all the wheat that is grown in South America (big numbers!) and always have. Practically all the bread that is eaten in Brazil, for example, is from Argentine grain: wheat won't grow well in hot climates.

But wheat is not famous... great steak is.

I fear that the beef that made Argentina famous will go the way of North America... and be produced mostly in feedlots. Feedlot beef producers are benefiting from the restrictions on and subsidies given to grain producers here.

When good grass-fed beef goes... and it's going... it will be very, very difficult to re-instate.

Our ranch is as organic as it gets. After we soak a goodly portion in 2-4-D/glyfosato it will be years before we could stop and reverse the situation. Even then, I probably would never in my lifetime be able to hold my head up as high as I do today when the mention arises of truly natural, organic, grass-fed beef.

In our area, we are among the first to make this decision... but there is an outer ring of ranches many kilometers from us that have been doing this for a while.

Come Spring, I'll be surprised if everyone in our neck of the pampas hasn't made the same decision... and grassland on which dinosaurs actually trod will be soy.

* apologies to the Bhagavad Gita

Dry Aged (24 days) Post

I meant to post this at the first of the month. Now, I'm compounding the error by posting it 24 days late. Even worse, I'm now posting it the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day...when NOBODY wants to hear about food!

Oh, well. Here it goes anyway...maybe your stomachs have been sufficiently stretched by Thursday's gorge and you're strangely hungry again or...you've been in Argentina long enough that the holiday slipped your mind altogether ("Sorry, Mom! Really, I just forgot all about it!")

In case you missed it, slate.com did a tremendous piece entitled "Raising the Steaks" If you are thrilled by the taste of Argentine Beef...apparently, it's not your imagination.

The article concentrates on the question of whether or not grass-fed beef tastes better. However, it strays into the subject of the USDA grading system (Prime, Choice, etc.) and a little bit into whether or not meat from "Angus" cattle actually has superior flavor and tenderness.

Of the five top-notch steaks sampled from different methods of rearing and aging, I chuckled out loud when I came to the one US steak most like a cut of Argentine Beef, "Tasting notes: Never have I witnessed a piece of meat so move grown men (and women)."

That fifth steak was, of course, declared the winner:

"The Verdict:
Marbling, schmarbling. The steak with the least intramuscular fat tasted the best—and was also the cheapest. That said, the steak with the most marbling came in a not–too-distant second. Do the two share anything in common? Interestingly, neither was finished on straight corn or treated with hormones. Both steaks also hail from ranches that pride themselves on their humane treatment of bovines. That made for an unexpected warm and fuzzy feeling as we loosened our belts, sat back, and embarked on several hours of wine-aided digestion."

(We can only hope the fine judges were sipping a malbec.)

That result should lay to rest any doubts among us long-timers as to whether or not the beef here is truly more tasty...or we just can't remember what a US steak tastes like.

Furthermore, it says something very good for grass-fed ranchers in the US. The grass-fed and/or organic beef movement allá is still quite new. The article makes a brief mention as to the resistance of restauranteurs to grass-fed beef for reasons of inconsistency, appearance, and quality. There is no doubt in my mind that this reluctance is due to the early results from those ranchers.

Early adopters there of the "no-feedlot" had lots of problems; it had been decades and decades since the US national herd had been selected for success on grass. There simply didn't remain any way of determining (or even guessing) in advance which cows would mature well by grazing alone. Argentine ranchers don't even notice that they eliminate individual cattle that don't do well on grass, it's simply something that they've never stopped doing.

Argentine Wheat Exports May Fall to Lowest in Almost 30 Years

Great article by Bloomberg but it´s only a snapshot.

Export controls last year in Argentina left wheat farmers with no one to sell to except for the handful of big mills inside Argentina ...ones that coincidentally had cozy relations with policy makers.

I predicted that those farmers would not plant wheat again this year ...I was wrong.  Well, wheat farmers are wheat farmers, and they know their special place in the world and its daily bread.

Well, guess what?  They got screwed again.  They are right back in the same position as last year ...too much wheat inside Argentina chasing too few buyers ...and no way to export it to their traditional cash customers.

All that destructive effort toward keeping the price of bread down until election day.  My advice to the wheat farmers here is not original, "Raise less wheat ...and more hell!"

Agriculture has a different cycle from the election cycle, however ...and come election day, the damage will have already been done.  And once the politicos have either won or lost (either way, doesn´t matter), they´ll have to deal with the reality then ...not now.  But the problem will be much more intractable later.

My newest prediction is that the trigueros (wheat farmers) will not plant wheat again.  They will plant stupid fucking soy beans ...because even the 35% tax on it is better than being resticted from export ...because no one eats soy here, unlike wheat for bread.

So much for preventing the "soyasation" of Argentina.

The combination of wheat farmers not being able to find customers on the internal-market at world-market prices for their world market produce ...and being stuck with a select few flour mills in Argentina that don´t need that much wheat and can pick-and-choose the wheat farmers they buy from them ...and who drive the price down to less than what the farmer spent to produce it ...if, indeed, wheat farmers can find a price even THAT high ...will drive wheat producers from one the world´s great wheat producing countries.

It´s not a laughing matter; if Argentina withdraws from the world of wheat growers by any significant percentage, every person on earth will feel it ...even more so in developing countries like Egypt and others where riots over wheat occured not too long ago.

Don´t get me wrong ...I´m a socialist by nature and nurture ...and a farmer and a rancher.  I am as proud to produce beef and grain for the national good as much as any guy from any graphic of a Soviet Poster...

...but the policies that wheat farmers are struggling under here in Argentina will hurt every bread eater in the world, both in the short and the long run.

Argentina has already left the beef business ...it will now leave the wheat business, to my mind.

I have always felt proud, especially as an immigrant to this great nation of immigrants,  to supply the national dish, beef, to the asados of every economic group ...even at prices lower than our cost of production.

My missus said it first ...we would be ecstatic to give-away 1/2 of all our animals to the government for redistribution as they see fit ...if only we could sell the other half on the world market .

Think about that for a moment ...then call us oligarchas, if you wish.  One-half of every rancher´s production would have been enough to supply Argentina and the world ...the other half could have kept the Argentine beef industry healthy.

Now, the export restrictions on beef have driven all of our neighbors out of the business.  No mandates will cause them to re-enter the business, nor cause calves to be born to mothers that don´t exist. Argentina has exited the world market for beef ...and could very well not even be able to satisfy internal demand.

To me, wheat is even more important.  Both vegans and carnivores depend on it.  Brazil, our neighbor and historical customer for wheat, depended on Argentina for all of its bread wheat (wheat does not grow well in the tropics.)  Brazil will now buys wheat with euros ...and wheat that is not as good as from Argentina.

Argentine farmers and ranchers SHOULD supply Argentine demand first, in my opinion, even at a loss, if need be.  To me, it makes no sense to export everything just because one country´s currency is, currently, stronger than ours.

However, beggaring Argentine wheat and beef producers to satisfy political contributors farther up the food-chain, toward the short-term goal of keeping bread and circuses going until election day, hurts us domestically and internationally in that no international buyers will trust the great breadbasket of Argentina to fulfill orders in the future.

Ranchers and wheat farmers are not investing their own money back into production.  We buy pick-up trucks and apartments that we don´t need nor want ...but it seems more sound than our own, traditional, business.

That will continue. We will shrink from our well-earned place among the great breadbaskets of the world ...until no one takes us seriously anymore.

Even if policies change, we agro-types will struggle against our loss of markets even as we struggle against the weather and prices as we always have.  It will be a long way back ...if at all.

What hides behind worthy but faux-socialist goals of keeping food affordable ...is really the short-term keeping of prices of basic staples low to forego any unrest against the powers that be ...and as you´ve seen lately in the shops and markets, it´s not even bringing benefits to the consumer in the form of low food prices. 

After the election, the chips will fall where they may.  Office holders will have won or lost ...and the devil will take the hindmost, the producers ...and the consumers once they let go of the rope that has restrained the income of producers who needed that money to keep their operations going ...and their confidence going when it was time to make some big outlays into their fields and herds.

Ironically, if farmers and ranchers are left to their own devices, they (we) inevitably will produce more than the world can consume.  If left to the brutality of the market, and our own hubris, we eventually produce more than is good for ourselves ...but is very good for consumer prices.

What we are seeing today in La República is not socialism ...but a last-gasp effort to keep beef and bread prices low ...until the current administration either wins or loses. What happens after that can either take the form of a policy reversal ...or be left for the next guy.  In either case, it cannot continue.

It apparently is of no concern if the capacity of Argentina to produce beef and wheat, during a time in which the world needs it most, is damaged beyond decades of repair.

There are only a few great "breadbaskets" of the world.  To drive the producers of one of them out-of-business should be looked upon as a crying shame.

I hope you´ll think about that tonight at dinner.

(Full Disclosure:  my missus and I do not raise wheat, nor have we ever, nor will we ever.)