H5N1 meat up

Another gift of globalization. The Migrating birds beat us too globalization, but the sometimes inexplicable poultry trade is a huge factor. The why of many poultry sales is of course that we still have cheap oil (at $90 it is still cheap if you look at how much energy it gives us). Thus if there is a penny per pound to be gained, well lets ship it. In AL our own Commissioner of Agriculture brags of setting up deals to sell chicken to Cuba. What a red state dealing with Cuba - wouldn't their be political fall out. Well in a state that struggles for farm income apparently Commissioner Sparks is given a pass as he got re-elected. But why would it be cheaper for Cuba to buy chicken from AL than grow it themselves?????

K, I was thinking "cheap oil", but for another reason. The cheap corn that is the backbone of the large poultry operation is only cheap because of cheap nitrogen fertilizer which is manufactured from cheap crude oil.

Before nitrogen was cheap, chickens lived in small flocks in people's backyards. They ate the waste food from the household, and whatever weeds and bugs they could get. In the northern climate you might give your birds grain to get them through the winter. Or you might eat a chicken on a special occasion, knowing there would be more hatched out in the spring. Either way, poultry and poultry products were not traveling much, and not much was wasted.

I've read that on a global scale, Americans eat most of the chicken breast meat these days. Russians were complaining a few years back that they could only buy thighs -- all of the breast meat was being shipped to the US to satisfy our market. Meanwhile, American chicken feet are shipped to China, where they are deep fried as a snack food.

None of this would make sense if corn wasn't cheap. I'm surprised that anyone still talks about migrating birds spreading H5N1, as it seems that most outlying outbreaks eventually expose another previously unnoticed arm of the global poultry trade.

Transporting food is something that seems against common sense. I once read (over my economist wife's shoulder) some economist (was it Ricardo?) who established with a little maths formula that it was more efficient (cheaper) to produce Port in Portugal and ship it to England in exchange for English wheat than for each nation to produce both items.

Take cattle. A cow sells in Australia for about $500. In the UK a cow is worth about $2,500.

Those who worry about "food miles" should consider the oil used in all the inputs for production, not just the oil cost of transport. The EEC (like the USA) prohibits the importation of beef cattle because of the farm lobby. That policy is probably lauded as "ecological responsibility". In fact it sponsors the farming of poorer agricultural land, which almost certainly uses lots more oil to make it productive than is used in growing and transporting those imported cattle.

Susan, you are exactly right about cheap corn being part of cheap oil. Not just in the fertilizer but also the diesel used to run all the farm machinery. However things are about to change - note this article about possible shortages of fertilizer - http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=14704

But that is just the beginning. We have apparently reached the peak of oil per day and likely will never see more produced per day, rather less and less per day. So the whole globalization scheme will collapse. When it does will we be ready to return to localized economy. The strange facts that Bar reports will be history. No more sending wine to England in exchange for wheat.

No more buying lead paint toys from China - we will have to produce them ourselves :)

K: Ricardo wrote about the concept of "comparative advantage" around 1817AD. The first oceangoing steamboat was in 1837.

That wine for wheat deal was in the days of sail.