A Beef with That

What’s the beef? Well, this: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture is on a special mission to Japan to pry open its markets further to U.S. beef. After mad cow disease was found in U.S. cattle in 2003, Japan stopped beef imports from the U.S. cold. It then opened the doors some, but still keeps restrictions in place (only meat from younger cows, judged less likely to contract mad cow, is allowed). The U.S. wants this to change. When U.S. President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address earlier this year that he wanted to double American exports in five years, I pictured solar panels, manufactured goods, cutting edge green technologies (OK, perhaps that was utopian) — not feedlot beef.

Not noted in media reports is the irony of Vilsack flying to Japan, spewing climate-heating carbon dioxide, to promote methane-spewing beef. Why not skype with his Japanese counterparts about expanding sustainable, humane food systems? Both countries could benefit from a carbon-neutral dialogue on that. That’s the yang for the day; now to the yin: a good, substantive piece in MacLean’s, one of Canada’s leading publications, on meat-eating and climate change. Plane reading perhaps for Vilsack and his team? Something else for them (and us) to chew over: World Day for the Abolition of Meat next weekend. Vilsack should be back in time.

Photo courtesy of Farm Sanctuary