By Dawn Attride for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

On February 26, Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins released a five-pronged strategy and investment of $1 billion to combat avian flu and reduce rising egg prices. The new measures focus largely on fixing on-farm biosecurity gaps as well as push for a new poultry vaccine. The proposed plan marks a pivot away from current methods of handling infected birds, which rely mostly on “stamping out” — where poultry farmers “depopulate” or wipe out their entire flocks. Sentient spoke with a number of experts who were skeptical about moving away from the USDA’s longstanding depopulation strategy, especially given the virus’ high capability for mutation. These experts say they are encouraged to see more attention and investment paid to the ongoing outbreaks, at the same time they note the plan’s lack of concrete details.

Meghan Davis, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says that it’s encouraging to see large-scale investment going towards research and biosecurity measures, but that she would like to see more clarity on what the strategies actually are, if they are going to replace depopulation. “These stamping out policies have been in place for quite some time. There’s a reason it exists and one of them is animal welfare issues –– these birds get really sick… and [rarely] recover,” Davis tells Sentient. We really need to think thoroughly about ways to limit further amplification of an outbreak and monitor whether or not new strategies are working, she says.

The move comes at a chaotic time for avian flu response. Thanks to Elon Musk’s federal spending crackdown, several key avian flu workers were fired by USDA, and the Department is now struggling to rehire them.

Mass firings of researchers and communication freezes across various scientific disciplines has instilled little confidence in experts who fear the U.S. is already lagging in its avian flu response. In the past 30 days alone, and as of March 3, the virus has infected 107 flocks, affecting 12.7 million birds, according to the USDA. So far, 70 people have been infected, and one person has died from avian flu in the U.S. Given the unpredictable nature of the virus and its spread into cats, pigs and cows, there is concern of a pandemic if human-to-human transmission occurs.

‘Gold-standard’ Biosecurity Measures

The bulk of the $1 billion investment goes towards reinforcing existing biosecurity measures — such as ramping up protocols to guard against disease spillover from wildlife — at no cost to farmers. These aspects of the plan may prove challenging given that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the agency who carries out on-farm inspections, has lost roughly 400 workers amidst Musk’s federal firings.

The boost in biosecurity measures focuses on risk from waterfowl and other wild birds that can shed the virus through their droppings or direct contact with farm animals. Spread between wildlife and farm animals is a key aspect of why avian flu spread is so hard to control, along with research that shows spread by wind.

The Rollins plan is light on concrete details as to what exactly the new biosecurity strategies are, but typical protocols would be vehicle wash stations and protective gear for workers, who are currently the most vulnerable population to avian flu spread.

When asked for more details about the new plan, a spokesperson for the USDA cited principles from a set of biosecurity protocols established in 2016 as part of the National Poultry Improvement Plan, and says measures will focus on biosecurity gaps: “This includes both structural biosecurity (measures used in the construction and maintenance of coops, pens, poultry houses and other facilities) and operational biosecurity (practices, procedures and policies that farm owners and workers follow consistently).”

In her Wall Street Journal commentary, Rollins notes that of the 150 sites that followed recommended biosecurity protocols, only one was subsequently affected by avian flu. Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett says he is preparing a “smart perimeter” plan, along with Rollins, to avoid depopulation.

Smart perimeters is essentially a fancy term for monitoring risk in the area around the farm, in this case geared towards wild bird migration. Picture a farm as a bullseye and then draw a 10 kilometer radius around it — that’s about the size of an avian flu risk perimeter.

“That’s a pretty crude way of assessing risk,” Maurice Pitesky, an associate professor and expert in poultry disease modeling at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, tells Sentient. Plopping 10 kilometer circles everywhere there’s an outbreak does little to account for bird movements in the region.

What works better, according to Pitesky: accurately tracking bird movement and holistically assessing different factors — such as wind or temperature — that might drive birds into this radius. Pitesky has developed a technology that can track where waterfowl are relative to commercial poultry, which, he says, is highly scalable to help identify farms historically under the highest burden. For now, however, it doesn’t appear the USDA is incorporating this into their smart perimeter work, he says.

Even as, broadly speaking, strengthening biosecurity is key to combat spread, it alone might not be the saving grace everyone hopes. “I think there is a lot of wishful thinking that this is going to be a game changer and that the farmers won’t have to euthanize non sick birds … that could be a bad thing [because] if you are not aggressive with depopulating, you have the potential to create reservoirs of virus that can potentially cause further spread,” Pitesky tells Sentient.

Vaccination Instead of Depopulation?

The USDA has given conditional approval to a Zoetis vaccine H5N2 for chickens, but has yet to give the go ahead for vaccinating commercial poultry flocks against avian flu. Some may be surprised to hear Rollins has committed to invest $100 million in research and development of such vaccines, given the anti-vax sentiments from Trump appointees like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Industry groups have chimed in their support, applauding the new USDA plan and expressing enthusiasm for vaccination. However, the reason the USDA has been hesitant to implement vaccination remains: many countries won’t accept vaccinated chickens. The U.S. is the second-largest exporter of poultry and should a vaccine be rolled out, the federal government would have to negotiate agreements with its trading partners.

“Before making a determination, USDA will solicit feedback from governors, state ag commissioners, veterinarians, farmers and the American public. In fact, USDA will immediately begin holding biweekly meetings to provide updates and hear your input,” a spokesperson for the USDA tells Sentient.

Rollins also suggested loosening “unnecessary regulatory burdens” on egg standards. One such law mentioned is California’s Proposition 12, which established minimum space requirements for egg-laying hens, and which Rollins says contributes to the state’s high egg prices. Prop 12 expanded the tightest confinement standards for some farm animals by mandating specific space requirements for products like pork and eggs sold in and to California, with a few exceptions. Nevada has just moved to allow suspension of its cage-free standards in an effort to increase egg supply, though many experts say the approach is largely flawed. Increasing more backyard chickens for eggs was also a suggestion — however, these chickens are also at risk of interacting with infectious waterfowl, as 51 backyard flocks have gotten avian flu in the past 30 days.

Watching and Waiting

Both Pitesky and Davis would like to see a wider range of experts deployed in order to curb the spread long-term — including animal behavior experts to make farms less attractive to wild birds, and environmental public health experts.

We already lag behind other countries who have “One Health” collaborative teams of experts to holistically assess outbreaks, says Davis. It’s unclear whether the USDA $1 billion accounts for this kind of avian flu analysis but it might be a tall ask, given the current administration’s erasure of non-essential research costs.

“Patchwork investment” won’t make up for the huge federal workforce losses of key researchers in this area and siloing scientific agencies with the communications ban, Davis says. “I have major concerns moving forward that we will not have good eyes on this virus and that heaven forbid, start to develop a human-to-human transmission chain, and that’s a huge step down that path towards a pandemic. I would hate to look back in five or 10 years at this moment and think, ‘wow, what we could have done right now could have prevented so much.’”


Dawn Attride wrote this article for Sentient.


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By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Kathleen Shannon for Wyoming News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

From slogans like “Where’s the beef?” to cheeseburgers on the Fourth of July, beef has long played an outsized role in American culture. Yet a growing body of evidence has found that beef is driving climate pollution and environmental destruction, and America eats more of it than anyone. Leading research institutions have advised Americans to decrease their beef consumption — but is beef consumption in the U.S. actually headed in the right direction?

“It’s pretty much universal across the peer reviewed scientific literature that we urgently need to curb agricultural greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most catastrophic climate change scenarios,” Brent Kim, faculty scientist at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University, tells Sentient. “One of the biggest and fastest ways we can achieve that is by cutting back on the amount of beef and milk that is produced.”

A Brief History of Beef Consumption in the U.S.

Cows aren’t native to the Americas, so beef wasn’t consumed in North America prior to colonization. This changed with the arrival of Europeans, who imported cows to the New World. American farmers and soldiers cleared land to make way for large beef ranches, displacing and killing Indigenous people and native bison in the process.

Over time, European immigrants came to the newly formed United States in increasing numbers, bringing with them a preference for meat when they could afford it. American farming and supply chains developed over time to meet that demand, and now, large swaths of land in the U.S. are dedicated to cattle ranching and industrial feedlots.

Why We Need to Eat Less Beef

Researchers at the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization have urged people in high-income countries to eat less beef, and there’s a good reason for that: it’s a major contributor to climate change.

Cows emit massive amounts of methane, one of the “big three” greenhouse gasses, through their burps and manure. In fact, nearly a third of all greenhouse gas emissions come from food production — and most of that is from cows.

Beef consumption in the U.S. also helps drive beef production, both here in and in countries that are clearing forests and other wild landscapes to meet this demand. Beef is the leading driver of deforestation worldwide, which releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, and is thus a major source of global warming. The mass removal of forested land also destroys the natural habitats that countless creatures rely on; it’s estimated that 135 species of plant, animal and insect go extinct every day due to deforestation around the world.

What Will Happen If We Don’t Eat Less Meat

Continuing to eat beef at this scale will have long term consequences. Kim points to a comprehensive 2023 study that found that food consumption alone could increase global temperatures by 1 degree Celsius by 2100, and that 75 percent of this increase would be attributable to foods that are significant sources of methane, like beef. Life will continue with that degree of warming, but it will be far less comfortable in some places and downright miserable in others.

How Much Beef Do Americans Eat?

When it comes to beef consumption in the U.S., there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that Americans eat a lot less beef now than 50 years ago. That’s largely because Americans shifted to chicken in that time period, which became incredibly cheap at the expense of welfare for farmed birds. But back to beef.

In 1974, per-capita beef consumption in the U.S. was around 117 pounds; this began to decrease in the mid-1980s, however, and since 2008, Americans have been eating less than 90 pounds of beef every year on a per-capita basis. That’s a significant reduction.

The bad news is that America still eats more beef than any other country in the world — around 13.82 million tons every year, according to UN data. Even China, which has more than four times as many people as the U.S., consumes less total beef every year.

America also produces more beef than any other country in the world, with Brazil in a close second.

As we’ll see in a moment, a small subset of countries consume a disproportionate amount of the world’s beef, and this dynamic holds true in America itself as well: A 2023 study found that just 12 percent of Americans consume over half of all beef in the country.

How Does Beef Consumption in the U.S. Compare to the Rest of the World?

Behind the U.S., the country that eats the most beef is China, which consumed around 12.35 million tons in 2022. 

Just two nations, the U.S. and China, eat a little less than half of all beef that’s produced globally — but China has over 1.4 billion people, while the U.S. has 340 million, and still eats more beef.

The Problem of Rising Beef Consumption in China

China’s beef consumption is still concerning, especially when looking at long-term trends. Whereas per-capita beef consumption in the U.S. has fallen over the decades, it has skyrocketed in China, leaping from just under half a pound in 1972 to over 17 pounds in 2022. Importantly, this growth hasn’t been due to some one-off event that caused a sudden spike in beef consumption; rather, it’s been continuous and steady over time, and analysts expect it to keep rising.

And that’s a big problem. Sure, the average person in China still eats much less beef per year than the average American — but because China’s population is so much bigger, even a modest increase in beef consumption will have a huge effect on overall beef production.

For instance, suppose China’s beef consumption rose from 17 pounds to 30 pounds per-capita. The country would still be eating only around half as much beef as America on a per-person basis, but because its population is so large, this modest rise in personal consumption would cause total beef consumption in the country to reach 21 million tons — almost twice that of the U.S.

Meat Consumption in Argentina

Something worth noting is that although the United States consumes more beef in total than any other country, Argentina eats the most beef on a per-capita basis. The fact that Argentina has around one-seventh the population of the U.S. makes this less of a problem in global terms, though, and highlights the fact that if we truly want to bring beef consumption down to sustainable levels, the onus is really on the countries that consume the most beef on a total basis — that is, the U.S., China and Brazil.

To illustrate this, let’s look a bit closer at Argentina and the United States. In 2022, Argentina consumed a little over 2 million tons of beef in total and 101 pounds per capita, while Americans ate 12.9 million tons of total beef and 83 pounds per capita. This means that the average Argentinian was eating more beef every year than the average American.

But because Argentina’s population is so much smaller, the country has much less of an opportunity to make a global impact by changing its consumption habits. If the average Argentinian cut their beef consumption in half, this would reduce global beef consumption by around one million tons per year. But if the average American reduced their beef consumption by just 20 percent, this would bring down global beef consumption by over 2.5 million every year — a much larger impact requiring a much smaller change.

The Bottom Line

It’s clear that the United States needs to reduce its beef consumption. But the burdens aren’t exactly equal. “When we’re talking about reductions in animal product intake, it’s not a universal prescription for all countries,” Kim says. “There are low- and middle-income countries that have high rates of malnourishment and stunting, and something as small as increasing their animal product intake by one egg a day could play a dramatic role in preventing many of the lifelong impacts of stunting.”

At the end of the day, almost half of all beef is consumed in America or China. If we want to bring down beef consumption in a meaningful way, these are the first places that need to start finding alternative sources of protein.


Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.


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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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