Water, water ... nowhere

“When you look at the projections of surface and groundwater in [Texas] and projected [demand for that water], those two lines intersect pretty quickly.”

Rick Kellison brought up that data point in an interview with Meatingplace’s Tom Johnston in 2014. Tom was researching “Dry Age Beef,” a multimedia, multi-chapter look at how scarce water was changing the beef industry. Kellison is a rancher who then, and now, is project manager for Texas Tech University’s Texas Alliance for Water Conservation.

Eleven years later, the story hasn’t changed. While California’s drought situation has improved considerably in the last decade, drought conditions in general affect more regions — about half of the acreage west of the Mississippi River — according to a comparison by the U.S. Drought Monitor at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

Water demands, primarily in the service of agriculture, including livestock production, is draining vital underground reservoirs faster than ever. Meanwhile, livestock-heavy regions of the northern Great Plains are seeing dry to severe drought conditions, and closer to the border with Mexico, the southern Plains range between extreme and exceptional drought.

Many of the most vital aquifers in the country are seeing the water line drop at a rate of 2 to 7 feet annually, according to research published in January 2024 in the journal, Nature.

• California: Although California’s water situation is better now than it was in 2014, some 75% of the state’s 183 groundwater basins are in decline, the researchers found.

• Texas: The Lobo Flat aquifer is losing 23 inches of water a year and 82% of the state’s aquifers overall are in decline. Lobo Flat is located in an area of South Texas that now is experiencing some of the worst drought conditions in the country.

• Idaho: The Mill Creek Aquifer is losing more than 7 feet of water a year and levels are falling in 60% of the state’s other groundwater reservoirs. Idaho is home to beef and dairy cattle, and sheep. 

• Oklahoma: 82% of aquifers are declining. More than half of the state’s water comes from underground.

• Kansas: Here, 71% of water comes from groundwater and 65% of its aquifers are deepening.  

The loss of water has profound implications for the meat supply chain, from the crops that are grown to feed the animals to that needed to maintain a food safe level of sanitation in the processing plants. Sustainability policies like not using a hose as a broom and recycling the water that you can back through the processing line are a drop in the ocean compared to the looming threat of losing the resource altogether, but every little bit helps.

More meaningful innovations are needed, innovations that could pull water from the air at large scale or create crops — or process food animals — that use less water. Perhaps that lightning rod known as cultivated meat could be part of the answer, someday. (Save the hate mail; most of the way we live our lives every day is based on technology unimaginable 50 years ago.)

If you’re like most people in this industry, you want to see your kids and grandkids enjoy the same benefits of feeding their communities that you have. What are you doing to make sure they have the resources they are going to need? What technologies do we need to ensure those resources are available at scale?

Will a squeaky wheel change the meat industry?

Cucumbers recalled on contamination with salmonella. Carrots and onions and lettuce recalled on contamination with E. coli. That these recalls came through FDA rather than FSIS does not change the fact that the contamination came from somewhere else, and that “else” was not a plant.

Pinning down the exact source of contamination in any particular recall scenario typically takes months, if the question is ever answered. The source could be migratory birds, deer or other wild animals — but with most produce being grown in proximity to penned livestock, suspicion falls on producers and from there, the entire meat supply chain.

Consider that Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) in January proposed the Expanded Food Safety Investigation Act of 2025 (H.R. 852), which was then referred to committee (where it sits). The bill is a retread of legislation she proposed in 2023, and would provide the FDA “with authority to conduct microbial sampling on [feedlots and farms] as necessary to facilitate a foodborne illness outbreak investigation.”

This, despite the fact that the highest-profile, recent recall of produce — the romaine lettuce recall that began in 2018 — was declared in 2024 by FDA investigators to have “no obvious route for contamination” from a nearby feedlot to the crops.

The conclusions of these investigations have been that, yes, any animal operation upwind or uphill from food crops could be a source of contamination, posing a danger especially in the case of produce that often is sold and eaten raw. But then, so could many, many other sources.

That squeaky wheel, then, also poses a danger.

In an article, “Using Nuisance Law to Advance Food Safety,” published in the Denver Law Journal in May, a Georgia State law professor posits that because regulations haven’t protected produce; because produce processors have been “unsuccessful in sanitizing tainted produce” prior to distribution; and because beef and dairy industries have been uncooperative, the most promising avenue to addressing produce pathogen contamination is “using nuisance claims to incentivize cattle operations to reduce the escape of manure, vaccinate cows against infection, and treat infected animals with antimicrobial feed additives.”

The professor, Timothy D. Lytton, writes, “Private lawsuits will complement the enforcement of existing environmental regulations that prohibit the discharge of manure into waterways or the air — regulations that have, for a variety of reasons, proven inadequate.”

Lytton acknowledges that the potential plaintiffs he identifies, including the links in the produce supply chain and injured consumers, lack the incentive or opportunity to do so. The answer, he writes, is additional pressure on regulators and legislators to put more resources behind reporting, testing and investigation.

“Given the power of the beef and dairy industries, this may be easier said than done” the article says. “Armed with sufficient causal evidence, plaintiffs’ firms … might be willing to file impact litigation against cattle operations linked to outbreaks.”

That “causal evidence” — aye, there’s the rub. If actionable causal evidence were determined in any of these outbreaks, we would have seen piles of lawsuits already. Americans are a litigious bunch. But the science, under attack for years already in public and political discourse, hasn’t played into Prof. Lytton’s proposed program.

The meat industry has researched and outlined several possible ways to address animal-sources pathogens in the environment. Vaccines stand out as a promising avenue. And far from resisting these efforts, companies along the meat supply chain are big funders of this research. The sticking point is, in fact, consumers: So far these preventive measures would add considerably to the cost of protein, possibly causing outsize disruption to families’ food budgets.

Maybe, just maybe, lawyers ought to focus on suing produce growers and processors for not properly treating the food before it’s distributed for sale? You know, like meat companies are.

With apologies to the late, great Matthew Perry, could this Make America Healthy Again movement BE any more confusing?

HHS Secretary RJK Jr. continues to lob criticism at vaccines for poultry and people alike — if perhaps a little less stridently than he used to — while also standing with USDA on its plan to invest $1 billion in fighting HPAI, in a multi-faceted plan that includes $100 million to fund vaccine research.

While decrying the influence of industry players on agency policy, Kennedy has promoted alternative health approaches while flanked by entrepreneurs who would likely profit from the new strategies. These recently have included “Food Babe” Vani Hari, whose Truvani plant-based protein powders and supplements were picked up in April by Target, and Dr. Mark Hyman, whose supplement and nutrition book business is valued at $2.5 billion.

The MAHA strategy is to remove all foods considered ultra-processed from the National School Lunch Program in favor of whole foods, produced as locally as possible. Trump’s 2026 fiscal spending plan includes increased funding for MAHA amidst deep proposed cuts to other food programs, as noted in the Food Fix food policy newsletter.

What does this mean for meat? Besides putting a fog over what companies need to plan for their financial futures, that is.

It means you need to turn on your fog lights.

Kennedy’s and Rollins’s plan to re-open the Dietary Guidelines proposal already submitted by that committee seems a step in animal protein’s direction, as in the HHS secretary’s enthusiasm for beef tallow over seed oils in food prep. And there is no “cleaner” label than that on a package of fresh meat.

But consumers in developed countries opt for greater convenience every time: USDA’s most recent research indicates that U.S. consumers spend an average of just 37 minutes a day in food prep and clean-up, assuming three-ish meals a day. Statista reports that the processed meat market in the U.S. amounts to $43.49 billion, and is growing.

With the years-long consolidation in packers, most processors are involved in later processing such as deli meats, sausages, and pre-made meal elements of all kinds, like burgers with cheese, mushrooms or other add-ins already incorporated. They are the suppliers of billions of dollars’ worth of processed options to QSRs, fast-casual restaurants, school lunches and institutional foodservices.

The government can enact policies designed to make processed meats less appealing, but consumers have a way of deciding for themselves what they’ll buy. In between, I can only predict that new regulations will increase costs for the companies for compliance and packaging, assuming the agencies’ early statements actually make it into the rule-making system, which is not guaranteed.

The secretaries’ campaign against ultra-processed foods would seem to benefit animal proteins as well because so far, despite their health claims, most plant-based or fermented meat substitutes fall under “ultra-processed” in the NOVA classification. (Studies are underway to develop a more nuanced way of understanding processing in food, but researchers have not released any conclusions as yet.) Meanwhile, many of the MAHA adherents, consumers and experts alike, are committed to reducing animal protein in favor of pulse and other plant proteins. Would Kennedy and Rollins make much headway if they encounter blowback from their biggest fans? We don’t know.

Meanwhile, the agencies’ proposals regarding HPAI, that perhaps the virus simply needs to “run its course,” has raised alarm bells across the industry and among legislators. That there is money earmarked for further research in this specific area is encouraging, and neither HHS nor USDA has said much about just letting HPAI spread in several weeks. What’ll happen as the migratory season, when HPAI tends to spread more widely, plays out?

We don’t know.

The meat industry is not driving this bus. In the end, what actually happens in Washington could benefit processors immensely. But the lack of clarity is its own albatross.

What strategies are you using in your companies, and in your business plans, to account for the MAHA movement?

MAHA! Hahaha … haha ... ha.

We ran a story in last Friday afternoon’s newsletter summarizing new research from the Technical University of Denmark that concluded it is possible to fulfill the nutritional needs of the global population without draining the planet of its natural resources only by curtailing consumption of pork and poultry and eliminating beef entirely.

Not unexpectedly, our item prompted a fair amount of scorn.

But — and bear with me here — what if the research out of Denmark isn’t so easily dismissed? What if there are takeaways that, if not applicable on their face, could still lead to better decision-making now and into the future?

This study is, like most academic research, purely theoretical. It’s more an exercise in data analysis than actual guidance to dietary changes, for sustainability or any other reason. For the purposes of the study, the researchers chose the information to include in their calculations, from the types and amounts of foodstuffs to the environmental effects they measured. And, they focused on a typical U.S. diet and the U.S. system of food and animal protein production; if they tried to apply the same analysis to Argentina or Malaysia, the results would be wholly different.

Furthermore, the research authors acknowledge that diets without animal protein must be fortified or supplemented with vitamin B12 and vitamin D to meet people’s nutritional needs. The study’s ultimate conclusion isn’t quite so neat as the article’s title would suggest.

So, what role does a purely theoretical exercise play in a world of delivery windows and production snafus? Why is this a story?

The research is a first effort to answer the question of whether we ultimately can feed the global population properly without overtaxing the planet, which does loom as a central challenge of daily life in just a few generations hence. The paper amounts to a blunt instrument, and like most academic research, it includes the recommendation that more investigation is warranted: “Going forward, this approach could be integrated into more advanced models or paired with prospective data when designing new food systems. Complementing this approach with more bottom-up approaches in future work could further refine insights into dietary patterns and nutritional requirements.”

Meanwhile, there’s food for thought. The North American meat industry is a world leader in raising livestock efficiently and in producing and processing meat with less stress on the environment, but technology is always advancing and room for improvement exists; where can your company, suppliers and distributors do better?

The study invites U.S. meat companies to think globally: That this research was done at a European institution isn’t surprising, as Europeans in general are far more concerned about climate and sustainability than North Americans are at this point. But trends tend to move west from Europe — and this trend already has, with more than two-thirds of millennial- and Gen Z-age consumers saying that “the climate should be top priority to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations.” Is the meat industry here prepared to market to a consumer base that focuses more intently on these issues?

The Danish researchers highlight the UN’s data that shows that out of 8 billion people on the planet, more than 700 million are undernourished and another 2.3 billion are moderately or severely food insecure. Already, plenty of food is produced each year to feed everyone adequately, but far too much goes bad, is thrown out or simply doesn’t get to the people who need it most. How could the meat industry help create supply chains that would get more poultry and red meat nutrition in a cost-effective manner from areas of overabundance — say, the U.S., Brazil, Argentina or Australia — to areas of need, such as Southeast Asia and Africa?

These questions are why a research paper from a Danish university that says the world needs to stop eating beef is a story for Meatingplace. Part of our job is to make sure our readers know what’s coming at them from over the horizon, whether that’s next week or a decade from now. And what’s coming is not some forcible restriction or elimination of animal protein from our dinner plates — but it is growing concern about sustainability, not just from Danish scientists but from your ultimate consumer. 

Is Denmark so Rotten?