DES MOINES, Iowa - Local bankers in small towns across Iowa and nine other states are surveyed to make up the "Rural Mainstreet Index," and the latest index shows a distinct lack of optimism about the rural economy.

The index rose from 34.8 in January to 37 points in February, which is still considered below neutral in terms of their outlook for growth. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss, who oversees the survey, said it appears farmers are more overextended at banks than at this time last year, but it isn't a cause for alarm.

"The farmers still remain in reasonably good condition," he said. "This is nothing like a return to the 1980s, where the farmers mortgaged their land up significantly, and we are moving into a territory where the farmer is getting more leverage than before."

Goss said continued low commodity prices primarily are to blame for the negative outlook. The bankers were asked for their current views of the local economy, and predictions for the coming six months. Only 8.7 percent said their local economy is expanding, while more than a third - almost 37 percent - called theirs a recession.

Goss said he believes market conditions will improve in the second half of 2016, with some cautions.

"2016 is going to be somewhat like 2015, a bit challenging for the rural areas," he said. "For example, farmland prices still coming down; we're seeing cash rents, cash land rents, for the region coming down a bit."

He said the rural economy is stabilizing, but it's been at a low point.

"What we need to see going forward is at least international trade improving, also a turnaround in the global economy - and tack on a weaker dollar, that would all push the agricultural economy into positive territory," he said. "But right now, it's not in the immediate horizon."

This is the sixth month in a row with survey results below growth-neutral levels. Higher home sales in rural communities are one bright spot in the report.

The survey is online at creighton.edu.


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By Nina B. Elkadi for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Trimmel Gomes for Florida News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration.

In a new paper, University of Miami Professor Jennifer Jacquet and a team of researchers argue that the industry-funded National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) knew about the harms of beef production on climate change as early as 1989 and worked to obfuscate the science. In a subsequent paper, Jacquet and post-doctoral associate Loredana Loy trace how trade groups worked to incite doubt that consumers could make a difference, by choosing to eat less meat, on global climate emissions. There is some evidence, albeit indirect, that these efforts have paid off - a 2023 public poll of 1,404 U.S. adults found 74 percent of them said not eating meat would have little or no impact on climate change.

"Meat and dairy does not want the individual or the consumer to think they have any power, or to think that their choices make a difference at all," Jacquet tells Sentient. "They're constantly saying what you do as a consumer will not make a difference. 'Eating less meat and dairy will not make a difference.'"

Yet a large body of climate research from nonpartisan research groups like the World Resource Institute and EAT-Lancet have concluded that dietary change, in the form of reducing meat consumption, is a necessary component of reducing the anthropogenic effects of climate change.

In a parallel to Naomi Oreskes's and Eric Conway's Merchants of Doubt, which details how a group of scientists worked to incite doubt around scientific topics such as anthropogenic climate change and the harmful effects of tobacco, Jacquet's and Loy's research describes how the meat and dairy industry worked to create doubt that consumers can take action to address the harmful effects of beef on the environment. "I call them the moo-chants of doubt," Jacquet says.

In their other paper, Jacquet and her fellow researchers trace how this stems from a history of recognizing, then downplaying, the effects of the beef industry on global warming.

"There is a long, well-documented history of industry attempts to downplay, discredit and even outright deny science that demonstrates the harms of its activities and products. This strategy was honed to a fine art by the tobacco industry; the beef industry now appears to be following the tobacco model," Oreskes wrote to Sentient.

The question that underlies the research investigating the impacts of industry funding is just how much free will consumers have in their decision-making - especially if the information they receive is flawed.

Trade groups like the NCBA are funded by industry checkoffs, which farmers who sell the commodity pay into on each unit they sell. The checkoff industry is a pot of money worth over $1 billion, and is used for researching and marketing the commodity. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that a commodity program would work to make its commodity look good. But the result, in this case, Jacquet argues, is a misinformed public.

How the Beef Industry Funded Research

In 2006, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization published a report highlighting the impact of animal agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions. In it, the researchers found that the livestock sector is "responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions," which is a higher share than that of the transportation sector. The report ultimately warns against continuing on with "business as usual."

In response to this report, Jacquet et al. write, the beef industry commissioned studies to downplay these findings. In 2009, the NCBA gave University of California Davis Professor Frank Mitloehner a grant to investigate the claims made in the FAO report. Throughout his career, Mitloehner has received millions of dollars of industry funding, Jacquet writes, from corporations and trade groups like the NCBA, the National Pork Board and Eli Lilly, funding that was not always disclosed and that in part funded communications efforts to defend the industry.

Jacquet became interested in the origins of the grant, and its goals, and began digging deeper into NCBA archives. Through her archival work, she discovered that climate change was on the industry's radar long before the FAO report, and that the industry was building plans on how to counter claims that reducing meat consumption could have an impact on the environment.

Documented Obstruction

One of the documents Jacquet uncovered was a 1989 NCBA (then NCA) "Strategic Plan on the Environment," which acknowledged global warming and the great impact it could have on the industry. The recommendations set out in the plan include taking "a leadership role in positively influencing legislation and regulations," as well as a campaign to reach "influencers," then defined as media and educators, as well as lawmakers and the leadership of environmental organizations.

The public relations part of the plan mentions "vegetarian messaging" - messaging that encourages consumers to eat less meat - and included one strategy that recommended establishing "a system for monitoring the media and environmentalist advocacy groups actions."

In 1992, a campaign spearheaded by the Beyond Beef Coalition singled out "beef production as a major source of global warming" and encouraged consumers to decrease their beef consumption by 50 percent. The industry fought back with a campaign of its own, Loy and Jacquet write, urging consumers not to blame cows for climate change.

While fighting one campaign with another campaign seems like par for the course in public relations, Loy and Jacquet write that the NCA also urged radio and T.V. producers to refrain from publicizing campaigns like "Diet for a New America" (1990), and funded academic research at Texas A&M to rebut claims made in the Diet for a New America book, such as "it takes 40 times more fossil fuels to produce one pound of protein from feedlot beef than from wheat."

"They emphasized that individuals would not make a difference, and they also obstructed the sort of public understanding of the role of cows and climate change significantly," Jacquet says.

When asked for a response on the conclusion of these two most recent papers, Chief Executive Officer of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Colin Woodall, wrote to Sentient: "The author of these papers takes significant liberties with the information available to her. Correcting misinformation with science-based data, is just one of the essential roles of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, one for which we are unapologetic. The Environmental Protection Agency has calculated beef's actual greenhouse gas emissions at just 2.3 percent of U.S. emissions. Meaning that any effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by lessening beef consumption would be inconsequential. Any suggestion to the contrary is irresponsible."

The trade group frequently cites the 2.3 percent figure, which is accurate, but missing important context, according to climate researchers who study food-related emissions. Focusing solely on U.S. emission percentages is misleading, writes Princeton University researcher Tim Searchinger "because overall U.S. emissions are so high." Per capita, these same emissions would be 24 percent "of an average European's total emissions and roughly all per capita emissions in sub-Saharan Africa." Also left out of this figure is just how much beef the average U.S. consumer eats - three times more than the global average.

Imagining a Different World

Changing your diet is one of the few things that an individual consumer can do to impact the climate, Jacquet tells Sentient. As household actions go, shifting to a plant-forward diet is one of the most effective, according to a 2021 study from Project Drawdown.

Reduced meat consumption helps curb how many cows are raised for food. Beef has an outsized climate impact due to the methane they burp into the atmosphere and the massive amounts of land and feed crops required over the course of their lifetime. And cutting back would also have other carbon benefits such as reverting pastureland back to forest and other wild landscapes, which helps keep carbon emissions out of the atmosphere.

Despite the relative consensus on the role of dietary shifts that emerged around 2018, industry misinformation has made its way to most of the public. In their paper, Loy and Jacquet write that "at least part of the reason for civil society's diminished ambition and hesitation to advocate for dietary change as a climate mitigation strategy was due to strategic opposition by the animal agriculture industry."

Through the 2000s and into the 2010s, trade organizations were still working against campaigns that encourage eating less beef, Loy and Jacquet argue. In 2021, Colorado governor Jared Polis declared a 'Meat Out Day' and encouraged residents to lessen their meat consumption. The Colorado Cattlemen's Association organized against this, resulting in 26 Colorado counties signing "Meat In" proclamations. The Governor then back-pedalled and declared one day 'Colorado Livestock Proud Day' the following week.

The industry campaigns and funding have been so effective in changing public perception, Jacquet and Loy argue, that they have influenced governmental policy and guidance.

"There's never been a huge buy-in on behalf of the government to address consumption," Jacquet says. The Biden administration's 2023 plan to reduce methane emissions did not mention reducing beef consumption once, for instance. "There's a lot of talk about tweaking production methods, very similar to how it is now with feed additives. Not about reducing head counts, by the way, but about proving efficiency. That is the grand narrative, I think, that we are all operating under."


Nina B. Elkadi wrote this article for Sentient.


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The Florida tomato industry is stepping into uncharted territory following the termination of a decades old trade agreement with Mexico, marking what growers hope will be a turning point in their fight for fair competition.

The U.S. Department of Commerce's decision to end the 2019 Tomato Suspension Agreement has been met with optimism from domestic producers but the path forward remains uncertain as the market adjusts to new trade realities.

Robert Guenther, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange, framed the move as a necessary reset for protection from unfair competition.

"This decision has been affirmed multiple times now, by the U.S. government, in multiple administrations during the time period of this agreement that dumping has occurred," Guenther explained. "Thus, there need to be penalties applied to the Mexican industry to ensure that the American tomato farmers can have a just and fair playing field."

If it stays the course, on July 14, most Mexican tomatoes will face a 20.91% tariff. U.S. growers lost half their market share since 1994, with imports surging 400% under the agreement. Mexico plans to renegotiate while maintaining antidumping tariffs on pork and chicken, replicating its tomato deal strategy.

The transition unfolds as Florida's agricultural sector faces parallel challenges, particularly with labor costs Guenther identified as the industry's "highest input cost" which depends heavily on the H-2A visa program, which brings workers into the country to work temporarily.

"That's been a very successful program for the tomato industry and a lot of specialty crops and fruit and vegetables in Florida," Guenther noted. "Still, the cost of that program it continues to rise, the bureaucracy of that program continues to rise."

The intersecting challenges, trade policy, labor supply and market dynamics, will determine whether Florida's tomato fields see a renaissance or continued struggle in the post-agreement era. The Commerce Department's 90-day implementation clock continues ticking toward a July deadline which could redefine fresh produce aisles across North America.


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When consumers buy a meat product, they might like the idea it came from a local farm or ranch. But experts say there are still logjams in regional supply chains and a bipartisan bill in Congress is back in play to open pathways for more processing.

This week, a handful of federal lawmakers from both parties reintroduced a bill they have said would make it easier for local livestock and poultry producers to rely on processing sites close by. It would address issues related to inspections, and create a competitive grant program for smaller establishments.

Corey Hart, president of Bowdon Meat Processing in North Dakota, welcomes the approach, noting even when busy, it can be tough to stay competitive.

"Everything's so costly in the meat-processing business," Hart pointed out. "Everything's stainless steel as far as your equipment, plus the building costs."

He said local shops handle the challenges while trying to meet strong demand. Bill supporters said their plan is another way to make local food production more resilient in an industry often dominated by a handful of corporations. The bill's main sponsor is Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-S.D., is a co-sponsor.

Despite the bipartisan push, it is unclear how far the measure will go.

Connor Kippe, policy specialist for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the plan would likely have to be part of the next Farm Bill, a sometimes politically divisive topic. If the proposal does become a reality, he noted consumers might see more meat products raised in an environmentally friendly way.

"Theoretically, it'll allow for a more diversified processing sphere: mixed-species plants versus large single-species plants," Kippe explained.

For example, building up capacity could allow for more processing of grass-fed beef. Kippe added the timing is important because of increased uncertainty for farmers under the emerging trade war.


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