Beef Industry Finds Itself Under Attack Again

Des Moines Register:

Until a recent dip, cattle prices enjoyed record highs. Beef exports also hit records in 2011. But then came the March blowup over lean, finely textured beef, derided by critics as “pink slime.”
The controversy represents a here-we-go-again battle in the defensive war the livestock industry has fought for four decades. The original hit to red meat began with scientific warnings about the connection between animal fats and heart disease in the 1960s, which became mainstream recommendations by cardiologists to reduce red meat consumption.
That’s been followed by a barrage of blows, some more tied to personal beliefs and changing food preferences than fact. Cattle producers fear their industry could go the way of big tobacco, where warnings of health risk eventually shriveled sales. The average American eats 22 percent less red meat (defined as beef, pork, lamb and veal) than 40 years ago.
Social media fed the latest controversy, catching the industry by surprise. Meat packers have added the ammonia-treated beef scraps to ground beef for two decades, with few known problems.
The uproar caused the closing of Beef Products Inc. plants in Waterloo and two other locations in Kansas and Texas, putting 660 people out of work.
A beef processor went into bankruptcy last week, citing lost demand for beef trimmings. On the Chicago Board of Trade, cattle futures prices dropped 8 percent from early March.
“And to think that a big reason the trimmings are put into the ground beef is to make it more affordable to middle- and lower-income people to feed their families,” said Nichols, who has sold his cattle to 22 nations around the world.

I don't foresee the beef industry going the way of tobacco, but one never knows.  I think the livestock industry faces several challenges they must face, including customer opposition to confinement facilities, phosphorus runoff from manure polluting  rivers and lakes, and antibiotic resistant bacteria due to widespread use of preventative antibiotics in feed for livestock.  These are all issues which will require flexibility on the part of producers, and getting into a bunker mentality won't work well for the industry.