Y le llaman tratados de libre comercio que impiden a los paises firmantes se protejan mientras ellos subsidian la carne a tal nivel que producen más mientras mas dinero pierden. La diferencia la paga el contribuyente. De ellos se beneficia la industria de comoda chatarra que mata a millones al año de enfermedades cardiovasculares, cancer, diabetes, pancreatitis y más. Este sistema es un ejemplo de la maldad inherente al corporativismo monopolista que ha acabado con la agricultura real y con la democracia en ese país. Salvador Each year, American taxpayers dish out $38 billion to subsidize meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. To put this corporate welfare package in perspective, it’s nearly half the total unemployment benefits paid by all fifty US states to unemployed workers in 2012. However, as we’ll see, unlike unemployment payments, subsidies don’t actually benefit many Americans—nor many farmers—and they are often disbursed in illogical and unfair ways. Consider this: media mogul Ted Turner and former NBA star Scottie Pippen were among the more than one thousand non-farming New York City residents to pick up farming checks from the federal government in 2007. When it comes to the market for crops used as animal feed, which means the majority of crops grown in this country, America’s enormous farm subsidy program turns the system topsy-turvy. Bizarrely, government handouts encourage farmers to grow more of these crops even as prices decline. This is as backward as parents giving their kids extra money to make cold lemonade in the middle of winter. It just doesn’t make sense. Perhaps even worse than wasting the money, the consistent result of such a subsidy policy is to put small farmers out of business and damage rural communities here and abroad. But it doesn’t end there. Taxpayers also provide subsidies to encourage fishing even when it would otherwise be unprofitable. Yet with twice the number of fishing ships patrolling the seas than are necessary for the task, humans have already destroyed one-third of the ocean’s fisheries and, unless we cut back, are headed for complete destruction of all currently fished species within several decades. Few Americans are aware of the realities of meatonomics—the economic system that supports our nation’s supply of animal foods— yet the peculiar economic forces powering our food system influence us in ways few imagine and nudge us to behave in ways we normally wouldn’t. Among its various effects, one of the most unsettling is that the system encourages us to eat much more meat and dairy than the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises. According to conventional wisdom, factors like taste, dietary beliefs, and cultural traditions drive our decisions to buy animal foods. But the reality is that price plays a huge role in our eating choices as well. The alarming result of consumers watching our pocketbooks so carefully is that producers, who work hard to keep prices artificially low, are heavily responsible for driving demand. Doubling down on their strategy, producers also bombard shoppers with misleading messages about the need to chow down on animal foods. Consequently, Americans have, to a great extent, become puppets of the animal food industry. We eat what and how much we’re told to, and we exercise little informed, independent judgment. You might think you know why you choose to eat certain foods, but as we’ll see, the real reasons are much more complicated. alternet.org/books/public-getting-totally-ripped-price-meat-and-doesnt-know-it?akid=10871.249035.JCBL-N&rd=1&src=newsletter890528&t=11&paging=off
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 01:08:33 +0000
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