The United States Federal Government spends $38bn every year subsidising the meat and dairy industries. Research from 2015 shows this subsidisation reduces the price of Big Macs from $13 to $5 and the price of a pound of hamburger meat from $30 to the $5 we see today. Subsidies, however, only reduce the price of meat, not its total cost. Subsidies shift part of the costs of meat production to non-meat consumers. In free markets for private goods, consumers should bear the costs of production. With subsidised meat, those who neither consume meat nor benefit from its production pay much of its cost of production. Nor do even the resulting higher subsidy expenditures account for the entire costs of meat subsidisation.
In recent years, multiple organisations, from the Environmental Defense Fund to the Sierra Club have demanded expansive policies to address environmental concerns, from climate change to ocean pollution. Few focus on the extent to which subsidising industrialised agriculture contributes to the struggle to maintain the world’s resources and environment for future generations to enjoy. The World Resources Institute shows that agricultural land use produces 13% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Other studies find that agriculture alone produces 15% of all emissions, half of which result from the production of livestock. University of Oxford scientists evaluated British diets and found that meat-rich diets (more than 100g of meat per day) resulted in 7.2kg of CO2 emissions, vegetarian and pescatarian diets about 3.8kg of CO2 per day, and vegan diets only 2.9kg per day. Much of this difference comes from heavy reliance on cattle production.
“While a number of reasons exist to value the rainforest, one can easily support preserving its diversity of plant and animal life”
