For the past year, I’ve been buying excellent beef directly from a New Mexico rancher, who’s become a regular vendor among vegetable sellers at a local growers market. From her I’ve learned about the trials ranchers face in selling their products.

Her immediate concern is the state’s shortage of meat processors. She has to take her animals to Colorado.

The pandemic has shown us the weaknesses in the supply chain and reoriented consumer demand. Consumers nationwide depend on four big meat packing companies, and when plants closed over COVID-19 outbreaks, grocery store shelves emptied. That spurred consumer interest in buying local meat; there’s also growing enthusiasm for organic, grass-fed beef.

Ranchers are captives of an unfair market that rewards retailers and packing plants but not the people raising the livestock. They’re more than willing to sell directly, but there’s a bottleneck at the state’s few processors.

How did we get here?

In 2007, the U. S. Department of Agriculture admitted that for 30 years it wasn’t performing daily inspections as the law required. Hundreds of small meat processors located a long distance from the inspector’s base got a visit twice a week or every two weeks, according to a Reuters story.

That year, the USDA launched a new inspection system focused on facilities’ safety records and risk. The agency reasoned that this would send inspectors where they were most needed. But industry and consumer groups sharply criticized the agency because it lacked meaningful scientific data and had no objective way to weigh risk, according to the Center for Infectious Disease and Research Policy. The Consumer Federation of America said the Bush administration was simply trying to cut meat inspection costs.

With that backdrop, the USDA in July 2007 pulled the plug on New Mexico’s meat inspections, which had been performed by the state Livestock Board, after federal inspectors reported compliance issues. Then-Gov. Bill Richardson reshuffled the leadership of the Livestock Board, which tried for 18 months to placate the federal agency. The USDA gave Richardson several choices that included letting the USDA take over the program. He reluctantly agreed because he didn’t have a choice, a member of the Livestock Board told the Albuquerque Journal.

Until then, the Livestock Board had inspected about 30 meat processors. (They could sell only in New Mexico; USDA-inspected processors could sell out of state.) Many of the small processors didn’t survive the transition. Critics believed that was the point of the crackdown; the agency no longer had to spread inspectors among small, distant processors.

The industry nationwide was consolidating, with the blessing of the USDA. What’s left was fewer, larger, plants.

Today, New Mexico ranchers can expect a six-month wait before they get a slot at the remaining processors. This is a problem nationally.

States are taking steps to stabilize small processors. Pennsylvania offers grants to small meat processors to help them meet federal standards. Montana and North Carolina provide grants to help small and medium-sized processors expand, according to the website FoodPrint, devoted to sustainable food production. A federal bill stalled after opposition by what’s known as the Big Meat lobby.

New Mexico plans to restore state meat inspections. Legislation this year will provide $150,000 to the state Agriculture Department to help small processors open or expand and connect consumers and ranchers. However, the state Agriculture Department has estimated that a state meat inspection program would cost $1.6 million a year, and it’s not yet clear who would bear the cost. To date, 27 states manage their own meat inspection programs.

Making it possible for New Mexico companies to process New Mexico meat falls under the heading of value-added economic development. And it just makes sense.

I’ve long thought that the state’s consumers would like to be eating New Mexico burgers and steaks. Local inspections bridge that gap.

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