Been wondering why hamburger is over $3.00 per pound?
Your Tax Dollars Help Cargill Export Factory Meat
—By Tom Philpott| Tue Nov. 22, 2011 4:03 AM PST
The US Meat Export Federation has a straightforward mission: to open foreign markets to the output of our vast factory animal farms. The group represents all major players in the US industrial meat machine: the dominant meatpackers (Cargill, Smithfield, Tyson, and JBS); the big farm interests that grow their feed (American Soybean Association, the Iowa Corn Growers Association); and the agrichemical giants that supply corn farmers with inputs (Monsanto and Dupont).
Now, I deplore the US meat industry for all of its many abuses, but I'm not shocked that it has formed an interest group to push its suspect products on overseas markets. But this? It's nuts.
Under a USDA initiative called the Market Access Program, US taxpayers will be cutting a check to the US Meat Export Federation for $19.7 million in fiscal 2012.
Other outfits that wll receive MAP largesse of at least $5 million include US Grains Council (members include Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Monsanto); the Cotton Council International (Cargill); the USA Poultry and Egg Council (Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride, and Cargill, again).
more...
http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/11/cargill-export-meat-map