I want to start a boycott of Oregon beef. Or THEIR beef. Let's hit them right

[Maraya1969]

Between the eyes

I'm sure someone knows where the beef from these jerks ends up. Can you fill us in?. It would be so easy to make sure we don't support them financially

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. It would not be easy (if even possible) to do without hurting innocent ranchers.

Cattle are not sold directly to retail stores to be turned into steaks; they are sold at auction to slaughterhouses. There's no realistic way to determine which ranch they come from.

[hunter]

10. Yep.

And most of these guys are wannabee cowboys and cowboy rejects anyways.

[Kali]

16. exactly!

real ranchers rarely have time to go play militia for weeks at a time, and who the hell would want to do that if you did have a chance to take a couple weeks off?

and we wouldn't forget the damn snacks, either!

[underpants]

2. They aren't from Oregon.

They are barely connected to Earth.

[UTUSN]

3. Wait a minnit!1 Oregon ain't the culprit (these days), it's the Radical Mormons from elsewhere!1 n/t

[global1]

4. Don't Take It Out On Oregon Ranchers As These Malheur Protesters Are From Out Of State....

The people of Oregon don't support these treasoness interlopers.

[Kali]

5. unless they direct-market or are part of some co-op or other entity that does direct,

it is doubtful you can source back to individual ranches as a customer. most range cattle go through at least one or two other growing locations before slaughter. and then the cuts you buy retail are likely from different animals - and this is especially true if you buy chubs of hamburger (I do not recommend buying ground beef this way, it is the most likely way to get food poisoning from meat, other than chicken)

most beef is marketed as a commodity and you would have a hard time sourcing it back to the rancher, (though it can be done if there were some kind of outbreak)

AND from what I have read, the ranchers in Oregon didn't want those yahoos to come up there anyway. AND most of the yahoos aren't even really ranchers!

you COULD find a local source of beef in your area, see what you think about their politics or other world views and buy from them.

[csziggy]

7. Trying to buy locally sourced beef is probably the best choice anyway

Here if I want to buy locally grown and can't make it to a farmer's market, I can go to the food co-op. While they now sell some things from outside the area - so they can carry equivalent to the supermarkets - most of their produce, eggs, cheeses, and meats are locally produced and sustainably farmed.

So if I want to make sure that my beef is grass grown, locally produced, that is where I go.

[Kali]

13. yeah, there is starting to be more local beef in the upper end stores

mostly it is ground beef, but they also carry branded (sourced) grass fed and bison as well as some poultry.

[csziggy]

14. Well, the food co-op started out as a true co-op back in the 1960s

Originally we bought bulk items such as rice can canned goods so students could save money. Plus back then the closest grocery to the campus was three bus transfers away and the co-op managed to get a location a few blocks from most of the dorms.

Now it is no longer a co-op but members buy shares and share owners have to be local. Over the years the management has worked on buying locally and helping to support local farmers. For instance, that tupelo honey came from there. They buy cheese from farmers that raise their own cows and goats and wine from places that grow their own grapes. They have sources for grass fed beef and free range chickens - and their eggs. And of course they have locally grown produce.

I buy there when I can but the store is not convenient to where we usually go. Right now they are building a second location that will be much closer so I will have to develop the habit of going there in preference to the chain supermarket.

[safeinOhio]

23. Almost any local butcher shop works.

I don't buy beef or pork. Only lamb and goat. Both are grass fed and taste much better than beef.

[csziggy]

25. I'm not sure there are any local butcher shops left around here

I used to know of a few, but now the closest one I think is still open is about fifty miles away. They mostly (or solely) process deer for hunters. A lot of hunters love their venison sausage.

[hunter]

17. Yep, it's complicated.

My mom's cousin and his oldest son still ranch the original 1860's family homestead.

They are Wild West Libertarians, from my leftist perspective, perhaps, but intolerant of most flavors of right-wing-nut nuttery.

My great grandmas were all hard steely eyed women of the Wild West. My sweetest great grandma, seriously, the nicest among them:



She wrote romantic poetry in her spare time.

My last immigrant ancestor to the U.S.A. was a mail order bride to Salt Lake City from Scandinavia.

She didn't like sharing a husband, so she ran off with a U.S. government surveyor.

Most of my ancestors are undocumented. They were escaping shit storms in Europe and the U.K.. Didn't help much that some of them were pacifists. My mom's dad was a Conscientious Objector during World War II. They gave him a choice of prison or building Liberty and Victory Ships. He built ships.

[Kali]

19. I love your family stories.

[leftofcool]

6. No reason to hurt "real" ranchers who pay their bills

[2naSalit]

8. A boycott of beef

would be about as far as you could get. It all ends up in one of a few packing houses and all gets mixed together.

However, an overall boycott of beef is not the worst idea on the planet since this whole public lands issue hovers around the fact that beef producers say they can't function without the massive subsidies including cheap public land grazing permits that are more often abused than not. I already boycott beef, period, because of this crap.

Here are some reasons why a boycott is a good idea, besides health concerns for your body...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=ut3URdEzlKQ




http://www.westernwatersheds.org/public-lands-ranching/

It's also worth knowing that for ranching east of the Rockies one asks, "How many cow/calf pairs can I put on one acre of land?" Beyond the Rocky Mountain front and westward the question is, "How many acres do I need to feed a cow/calf pair?"

[Kali]

15. this is a little misleading,

beef producers do not get "massive subsidies" anywhere. one could make an argument that "low" grazing fees are a form of subsidy, but there are arguments the other way as well, and even if it is, it is nothing like commodity crop subsidies.

about 20% of all beef animals are born in the western (public land) states and then fed out elsewhere (midwest).

your link is to a page that would take too much time to fully debunk right now, but it is from group that wants to remove all modern human impacts including towns and other settlements from a huge portion of the country and "return" it to some imaginary pre-European contact condition.

western ranchers are a fairly easy target to start this removal because they are such a small population and the general public is easily misinformed about the subject.

[2naSalit]

18. the

link to the Western Watersheds Project is misinterpreted in your comment. You may have that opinion of what they are doing but that is not fact. The WWP is advocating for removal of ecosystem destroying cattle grazing on public lands. If you don't have enough room on your property to graze your cows, you have too many cows. And look what they do to the landscape, they ruin it for years by trampling riparian areas and killing off entire fisheries, importing invasive exotic species of vegetation and bugs not to mention the brucella abortis problem that bison have been blamed for and killed over when it was cattle that brought that here and passed it to bison and elk (Spoiler alert, elk pass it back to cattle not bison).

It's really quite simple to understand and regardless of your opinion, the fact is that western state ranchers wouldn't be viable as businesses if not for the massive subsidies allowed them. Not misleading at all.

What this whole argument can be boiled down to is that the cattle industry had its way in the west for about a hundred years and when that era ended, the cattle industry tried to stop it but since they are losing their deathgrip on control of the local governing bodies and public land they are having a massive temper tantrum and the Bundys are a prime example of the tantrum.

get over it, adapt.

[Kali]

20. I am a rancher and I have a slight clue what I am talking about.

I know who the folks behind WWP are and what their agenda is and has been for about the last 20 years.

There are no massive subsidies - show me were to sign up for a check! livestock can and are being used to fix the problems that have been caused by bad management in the past, just like any other tool. Ranchers provide services (unpaid) beyond the use of (renewable) grass, that few have any understanding of.

The mix of land management/ownership in the west makes it impossible to make a living on private property exclusively. (that includes uses like guiding, hunting, and various recreation vocations as well)

on the other side of it, there is no way in hell, the taxpayers/federal government and NGOs could afford to manage all of it without locals doing what they do for nothing now.

nor could they afford to purchase all the private property that would go on the market if ranching was stopped. I have a developer breathing down my neck right now, and I know a lot of really nice locations that would TRULY be destroyed if those kind of assholes with a lot of money could get their hands on them. cows don't got nuthin' on pavement for ruining some ecosystems.

[2naSalit]

21. I have known the

people at WWP since they started their activities, and you have a mythological perception of them and what they are about , but as I said above, you have your opinion, don't let facts, years of data and reality cloud your views.

We'll just have to agree to disagree since there is no way to discuss an issue when facts are ruled out from the beginning.

[Kali]

22. obviously I could say the exact same thing to you

...you have a mythological perception of them and what they are about , but ...you have your opinion, don't let facts, years of data and reality cloud your views.

We'll just have to agree to disagree since there is no way to discuss an issue when facts are ruled out from the beginning.

------------------------

to you and anybody else, I would simply invite you out to look at the ground and talk about what we see, what we really want and how to get there. the real facts are right there in the soil and plants and how they are functioning.

[L. Coyote]

9. Because an AZ businessman invaded Oregon. Yeah, we Oregonians really like you too now!

What a really, truly, lame-assed idea this is ... punish every rancher (innocent business person) in the whole state.

And good luck getting the beef industry to label beef as Made in Oregon.

[catnhatnh]

11. Free range cattle

are 3% of the herds and are run by 2% of the ranchers....

[onenote]

12. So hopefully you've been educated and will be less quick to suggest

foolish things in the future without doing a modicum of homework.

[leftyladyfrommo]

24. Would be funny if they got home and all their

Cattle were gone.

[MerryBlooms]

26. Those creeps aren't Oregonians, and as a matter of fact,

have been repeatedly denounced by locals and asked to leave!

[dembotoz]

27. they don't want us to have county of origin listed let alone state

i guess buy local....

[Bluenorthwest]

28. Those are cranks are from Nevada and Arizona, they are not Oregon ranchers at all.

Boycott Nevada. Boycott Arizona.

[Lizzie Poppet]

29. Why Oregon?

The only Oregon beef involved in all of this is what comes from the Hammond's cattle (and those guys finally did the right thing and surrendered to the authorities). The Bundys are from Nevada, some of the militants are from Arizona, some from Idaho, etc.