Where have all the cows gone?

Over past the half century or so, there has been a dramatic shift in where most of the cattle in the U.S. are feed just prior to slaughter.  Using data from USDA-NASS, I calculated the percentage of all U.S. cattle on feed that were in 6 selected states at the beginning of January each year from 1965 to 2005.

The story is familiar to industry analysts.  Over this time period, cattle largely moved from the upper Midwest (Iowa and Illinois) to drier climates in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.  Whereas 19% of cattle on feed were in Iowa in 1965, the figure was only 8% by 2005; by contrast only about 5% of cattle on feed were in Texas in 1965, but around 20% were in the state by 2005.  Whereas only 47% of all US cattle on feed were in these six states in 1965, concentration had increased as 67% of all cattle were being fed out in these six states by 2005. Stated differently, if you eat a steak today, there's a roughly two-thirds chance it came from a cow that was fed in Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, or Texas.  

The trends in the above figure might appear to be something of a paradox because Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska grow a lot more corn (i.e., cattle food) than Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.  But apparently the economics were such that it made more sense to ship to corn (and the cattle) to drier climates and locations where large packing plants could be situated far away from population centers.  

I'm wondering if this trend is starting to change, even if just by a little bit.  Beginning in the early to mid 2000s, US policy started to encourage corn-ethanol production in a big way.  Now, all that corn didn't need to travel to cows, it could go to all those ethanol plants which began popping up around the upper Midwest.  Here's a graph of the percentage of U.S. corn use that went to ethanol production from 2000 to 2012 (data are from the Feed grains yearbook, USDA-ERS).

Such a dramatic shift in the use of corn must have had some effect on cattle feeding.  Perhaps even in the geographic location of cattle.  According to a least one source, the largest producers of ethanol in 2015 were Iowa (at 3,820 million gallons/year capacity), Nebraska (1,976 gallons), and Illinois (1,525 gallons).  Much further down the list were Kansas (529), Texas (381 gallons), and Oklahoma (no capacity reported).  

Often lost in the discussions of food waste is the acknowledgement that cattle (and other livestock) are often big consumers of what would otherwise be waste products.  In this case, cattle can eat so-called distillers grains that are byproducts of ethanol production.  However, this distillers grain is not as easy or cheap to transport.  Thus, the economics might have shifted a bit toward bringing the cattle back closer to their finishing food.  

Here's the same graph as the one above but for the more recent time period from 2005-2016.  

There aren't dramatic geographic shifts, but the trends are consistent with the idea that ethanol has altered the geographic location of cattle finishing. Fitting a linear trend line through each state's data over this time period indicates that the states heavy with ethanol production have gained cattle and states with relatively little ethanol production have lost cattle.  Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois have increased their share of the US cattle on feed inventory by an average of 0.11%, 0.11%, and 0.05% per year over the last 11 years.  By contrast, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas have decreased their share of the US cattle on feed inventory by an average of -0.13%, -0.04%, and -0.09% per year over the last 11 years.

Obviously a lot has changed during the past 10 years other than ethanol production (drought and lower overall cattle inventories come to mind), but this might be a factor contributing to the spatial location of cattle in the US.

Politico on Food

Yesterday Politico.com came out with a whole series of articles on food policy.    

I was one of the "experts" interviewed for this piece on food policy.  I must admit to being in the minority opinion on several of the questions.  For example, one of the questions asked, "Are the presidential candidates doing a sufficient job in the campaign discussing the future of food policy?"  I was one of the 3% that said "yes" (I might have been the only one).  It is important to note that this is a survey of FOOD experts, and as such it's not at all surprising that they think their issue isn't getting enough attention.  But, with issues like ISIS, health care, immigration, etc., its no wonder food policy takes a backseat.  Total food and agricultural spending is a very small part of the federal budget.  In 2014, the whole of USDA was responsible for only about 4% of total federal spending (and the vast majority of that - around 80% - was for food assistance programs like SNAP). I suspect the candidates, on both the left and the right, have lots of smart, well-paid advisers, and the candidates are devoting an optimal amount of time to these issues given the likelihood they will actually sway votes.  Keep in mind Ted Cruz won the Iowa Republican caucus despite taking a stance against the ethanol mandate (a supposed sacred cow in corn-growing Iowa politics).  Anyway, you can read how the experts responded to the other questions at the link.

Another story on the complicated interrelationships between federal agencies in food safety regulation, applied particularly to chickens was interesting.  The story included the following fascinating graphic.  

Cost Effectiveness of Soda Taxes

In a piece for Cato, Christopher Snowden discusses the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of soda taxes that seem to be gaining traction worldwide.  Snowden's views closely mirror my own.  I like the way he framed the relative effectiveness of soda taxes in this passage:

“Whilst the benefit remains forever on the horizon, the cost can be easily calculated; it is simply the amount of money squeezed from consumers by the tax. In New Zealand, for example, advocates claim that a 20 per cent tax on soda would save 67 lives per year and raise $40 million (NZ).[12] Leaving aside the reliability of the New Zealand forecast, this works out as a cost of $600,000 (NZ) for every life that is extended and does not represent good value for money.

Political action on public health grounds is often justified by the costs of unhealthy lifestyles to the healthcare system, and therefore to the taxpayer. The economic costs of obesity are often misrepresented and fail to account for savings to taxpayers, but even if they were more reliable it is far from obvious that additional taxes would relieve the economic burden.[13] For example, the UK’s Children’s Food Campaign recently claimed that a 20 per cent tax on sugary drinks would reduce healthcare costs in London by £39 million over twenty years, but their own figures suggest that the tax itself will relieve Londoners of £2.6 billion over the same period.[14] The cost of the tax will therefore exceed the savings by several orders of magnitude.”

By the way, if you want to see which (out of more than 100) action will produce the biggest bank for your buck, check out the work of the Copenhagen Consensus, which routinely conducts cost-benefit analysis on a whole set of issues.  See their list for the most cost-effective actions.

100 year old fat tax

Thanks to David Allison and his colleagues' weekly email summarizing the latest research on obesity, I ran across this policy proposal in the British Medical Journal from 1904.  If you can't read the fine print, it says, in part, "A superfluity of fat, which is mostly the result of luxurious living, may therefore not unfairly be regarding as a fitting object of taxation."  You're off the hook if you weigh less than 135 lbs.  

Cost of Vermont's GMO labeling law

Back in 2014, the Vermont legislature passed a law mandating labels on certain foods produced with genetically engineered ingredients.  The law is set to go into effect this summer, and it has prompted a lawsuit and at least a couple federal attempts at a GMO labeling law to provide uniform standards across all states (the most recent is a bill by senator Pat Roberts from Kansas).

Against this backdrop comes a new study on the potential costs of Vermont's law.  According to Agri-Pulse:

“A new study funded by the Corn Refiners Association concludes that if Vermont’s mandatory labeling law were allowed to go into effect and spread nationwide, the increased cost of producing food in the U.S. would reach about $82 billion per year, or about $1,050 per family.”

That's a sizable sum, and one that's somewhat larger than the often-cited $500/family from  William Lesser of Cornell who estimated the costs of such a policy in New York.  We can add this new study to other previous ones like that of Julian Alston and Dan Sumner of UC Davis who estimated a $1.2 billion cost on California food processors when  that state had a ballot initiative back in 2008.  Tom Marsh and other economists estimated the costs (just of monitoring and oversight) in Washington State of over  $700,000/year when that state had a ballot initiative in 2012.  Here's a nice discussion of labeling effects by some Colorado State University agricultural economists produced with that state held a ballot initiative.

Of course a lot of pro-labeling groups dispute these estimates, and have written their own reports to "debunk" them, (though I find it curious that none of the de-bunkers have much economics training, while each of the authors of the above reports are respected and well known agricultural economists).  The organization Just Label It, for example says

“there’s no evidence that requiring food manufacturers to label products that contain genetically modified (GMO) ingredients will increase food prices at the supermarket.”

So, where's the truth?  All the studies (by pro- and anti-labeling groups alike) rely on assumptions.  One assumption often made by pro-labeling groups is that the government costs of monitoring and enforcement are essentially nonexistent.  As the Washington study suggests, however, that's unlikely to be true and these extra costs will either manifest themselves in higher taxes or higher food prices, depending on how they're funded and people respond.  Pro-labeling groups are right to suggest that the physical costs associated with changing the label are relatively small and close to the "cost of ink."  The much bigger question, and where most the controversy arises, is how food companies will respond to the label.  If they respond by seeking to source non-GM crops, the cost implications could be quite significant, and this is how we arrive at numbers like $1050/family (the new Vermont study also assumes manufactures will have to comply in all states not just Vermont because of possibility of liability if one of their unlabeled products sold elsewhere unwittingly finds itself on a store shelf in Vermont).  If instead food companies shrug their shoulders and just slap the label on all their products, the costs are likely closer to just the physical re-labeling costs and the government oversight and regulatory costs.  

So, how will retailers respond to the label?  My guess is that the answer is somewhere between the extremes: some will dis-adopt GM and others won't.  Thus, the expected cost should be calculated by multiplying the costs of disadoption by the anticipated likelihood of disadoption.   I find it a bit hard to believe that all retailers will fully move away from GM content to avoid the label (i.e., that the probability of full disadoption is 1).  Why?  A lot of consumers are unconcerned about GMOs and many more have no opinion on the issue, and thus there will remain an incentive for food companies to remain cost competitive.  Also, the US is going to produce a lot of GMO corn no matter the labeling policy because around 40% of the corn crop goes into our gas tanks as ethanol and most of the remaining corn crop is used for animal feed (and animal products are typically exempted from the label).  These much larger demanders of corn, as opposed to comparatively small demands for high fructose corn syrup or corn starch, are likely to drive the market for corn.  

So, all this would suggest that $1,050/household/year is an upper-bound estimate associated with the mandatory labeling law.  And, I think that's true, except for one thing.  The potentially much larger (and admittedly more speculative) costs could come about if we create a culture and market environment that is hostile to the introduction of biotech crops and crop technologies.  What future innovations will we forego if retailers chose to disadopt?  We may never know, but it would be a mistake not consider these opportunity costs.