Meat School Episode 4: The State of Local

This is the transcript of a video broadcast for IGTV ‘Meat School.’ You can watch the archived broadcast here.

Hi everyone. If you are joining for the first time this is Meat School, which is turning into this way of talking about meat off-the-grill so to speak. Cultural, social, environmental, economic, political underpinnings of meat in America.

I want to start off by saying THANK YOU to everyone who has been listening, speaking with me, sharing your thoughts, hopes, fears and wisdom. I have been pretty astounded at how ready so many of us are for asking hard questions, and taking the time to talk about them even when we don’t have answers.

If you are like me you are probably frustrated at the dominating stories in the news cycle these days. As always, who is represented and what questions are being asked is the kicker when it comes to informing the people, and while I have seen some really good stories that dig into the issues (I have been posting those in my story, have you seen them?) I am still sort of disillusioned with the obsession we have toward only asking the same questions we already asked of the same people we asked last time, because we know they have a ready answer to the first questions we think of, you know? The other thing is that these are deep issues, yes, and we know this. So. the sound byte, reactionary nature of all the talk makes it hard to understand what is happening. These are novel times, as has been noted. We need extraordinary thought and initiative here. That’s what this broadcast is about. A space for people who have been working on the lesser-told story of animals on the land, and working with livestock as a means to repairing the rift between human animals and non-human animals, and holding in their bones what that can do for the human-to-human and human-to-land conversation, and nourishing soil, and nourishing communities and individuals and families with life-giving food. 

So I have been really encouraged to see that there are some of you out there wanting to talk about the hard questions, wanting to share your efforts to address things that most people most of the time don’t want to handle. If you don’t know me yet I’m Meredith Leigh, author of the Ethical Meat Handbook and the book Pure Charcuterie. I’m a person of the land who has worked around 20 years to untangle the tangled food system through a lot of angles- farming, cooking, butchery, non profit advocacy, mold-growing, writing, and gypsy community teaching and organizing. So welcome to Meat School. A quick update, too, is that a follower suggested I start posting the transcripts of these broadcasts to my blog, and I think that is a really good idea in terms of accessibility and follow up documentation, so you can soon find all of them at mereleighfood.com/blog. Link is in my profile, too.

 

Our topic this week is going to wedge us into a fantastically uncomfortable space, so this is exciting. Ever since COVID hit I’ve been one of those short-supply-chain, regional resilience people who is sort of freaking out because I know this is the time for small businesses and community food networks to shine, but I also know that we have been hard slogging activists for decades and these systems that we have been building and testing to try and remember the wisdom of nature that lives within us are not ready yet for the weight of the mainstream. Now that we have this crisis upon society we get to tell this really awesome story that goes like:

once upon a time Billy couldn’t get a steak. And then farmer Lytisha and processor Betty were like hey Billy I’ve been here the whole time, here’s your steak and by the way don’t eat a steak every day, and don’t forget to use a meat thermometer and tell your friends, and do you want to hear this really cool fact about soil science, oh, and by the way did you know that even though Tyson is shut down, they’re still going to use your tax dollars to prop it back up. Bon apetit” right? It’s a lot. And processor Betty is NOT sleeping right now because she can’t keep up with the business, and farmer Lytisha is overrun with orders and Betty is out of processing dates, and some farmers are not being so nice about it, and so on and so forth.

You might have seen this story from The Counter last week wherein Chef Dan Barber polled something like 40 of the small farmers and fisheries and ranchers that supply his restaurant which he has converted into a dialed-in CSA during the crisis and all of them said business is great NOW but they are deeply concerned about the future. How can we keep this up? Will we have the labor to continue working at this level? What if our people get sick? Will the customers keep buying? What if we inventory up and people just go back to the grocery store? These are all real questions and the prediction of the article was that nearly 1/3 of small farmers is facing bankruptcy by the end of 2020, and we know that the restaurants are taking it hard right now.

 

I’ve had farmers hitting me up saying it’s the end of farm to table. I’ve also had people saying it’s only the beginning of what good food can accomplish. I think what we are here to do today is to talk about how it’s both. This is the end of farm to table as we’ve known it, and this is the beginning of what good food can accomplish next. Not ultimately, but next.

And I’m not gonna be all Pollyanna about anything. Some people are going out of business. Some people who have been doing a lot of work for good are going to see it all go down the drain. And that’s hard. The other thing is that farm to table as we know it hasn’t been iron-clad. It has been visionary and moved a lot of business and land healing forward, but it has also left people out, and been hard pressed to overcome some of the stickiest issues that better food faces, like living wages, food access and food permission, farmer and worker mental health, scalability. So when I say “the end of farm to table as we know it” I’m saying it’s not going to be pretty, but it is maybe going to let us re-imagine and reframe some of the conventions that the movement assumed, after borrowing them from the food system we are trying to overthrow. I don’t take it lightly. I’m a poster child for the utility of failure. I had a farm. For a long time. And it failed. It failed primarily because the people managing it weren’t healthy and didn’t take care of each other. Secondary failures came in the form of the steep learning curve of managing animals dynamically and holistically on the land, and overestimating the customer base, and so on and so forth. Going down was hard as nails, but I think ultimately it put the fight in me that fuels my never ending pilgrimage to try and try and try again, not just for myself but for the whole beautiful idea of good food for everyone, the land included. 

The situation on the ground in the meat world right now is that the big guys are on hold, the virus having spread through large processing facilities making those facilities hot spots for the virus. On top of that, the closing of restaurants, schools, and other large institutions has re-directed a ton of bulk packed wholesale meat into the freezer, because the cost, physical packaging, and labor of re-directing that product to retail sales is a huge cluster. Meanwhile, live animals slated for that system are selling for pennies on the dollar at auction, or being euthanized to avoid major issues of crowding, disease, feeding, waste management, and ultimately financial headache.

The public, seeing the news, heads out for chest freezers (3-6 week wait for one of them at the major home improvement stores, I’m told), stocks up, and anyone with a couple four-legged cud chewers on the back forty calls their local abattoir and makes an appointment for a slaughter. Betty the processor starts to run out of dates on the calendar, and to top it off, Omar, the abattoir two hours away has just transitioned of his business toward stocking his own retail outlet for the boom, and so everyone who can’t get a date with Omar is blowing up Betty’s phone. On the farm side, Lytisha has been a loyal customer of Betty’s for thirteen years, supplying enough animals to keep Betty’s labor steady, but now she can’t get dates past July. On top of it, Lytisha’s meat that was going to restaurants has to be re-directed to another plant that can package it for retail, which means more shipping, more driving, and longer turnaround times. It’s impossible to predict cash flow, so Lytisha can’t know whether to buy the live animals from farmer Steve (who is going under, by the way) to keep up with the demand that she’s seeing because who knows when the bottom will drop out of this, plus she’s got no extra help to castrate or corral, and not to mention the fuel and trailer to transport and the cold storage to hold product if she needs it.

She calls another USDA plant where she has a label registered but hears that there hasn’t been a federal inspector in that plant for seven or more weeks. She doesn’t know why. Are they calling in sick? Moved to larger plants to back fill positions due to people falling ill? She hears the plant is trying to turn back to state inspection but that takes time and there are issues to iron out. She heard that one plant was so beyond capacity that the roof structure and the wall cracked because there were so many chilled halves on the rail. Omar might be sitting pretty in his retail shop now, but some farmers are saying they won’t go back to him because he’s forgetting who kept him in business these last many years and who will stock his freezers after the virus is over? Omar figures that since there is ALREADY not enough processors for the smallholder farmers, that he’ll be OK anyway.

 Meanwhile, the big guys. What are they doing? Trying to re-open and getting hit huge, lobbying their buddies on Capitol Hill for a bailout no doubt, probably(?) taking for granted that the rural folks who are their supply-people will still be there and just hoping that those farm families and communities will be ready and willing when they want to put more animals on the ground. As we speak numbers are out today citing over 10 million hogs or piglets slated to be smothered, anesthetized, overheated, gassed, slammed into the wall, or foamed to death before this is all over with. And the “peak cull” of chickens is already behind us, with 2 million meat chickens and 61,000 laying hens that have already been killed. (source.) Not to mention the eggs being ground up before they hatch. We already discussed, during week 1 of meat school,  the fact that this is the very definition of unsustainable agriculture. The system has a built-in backlog, and its profitability and success rests on the fact that the farm level and the animals themselves cannot. survive. safely and naturally. without. the. corporate. through-put.   

Does this mean big meat is finished? Doubtful. For sure these big guys have cash flow reserves, and freezers full of meat in reserve, too. They are re-directing, for sure, but I’m betting they’re also waiting. Because they can afford to wait. They watch the farms empty and the feedlots fill and the farmers folding their arms, and they forecast all the ways they can consolidate more. My small ruminant veterinarian and shepherd guru, Greg Stewart of World Shepherd told me last week that a poultry operation in NC “sold 234,000 lbs of poultry breast meat in the four parking lot corners of a closed Statesville mall in 37 minutes. Sold out. All for less than $1.10 per pound in 40 lb. boxes. Why? Their freezers were at capacity. We pray that America’s farms and ranches will survive.”

Ahem. Let’s all take a breath. This is a lot. A lot a lot a lot but we are going to sit with it and not turn off the video.

I’ve been on the phone non stop, trying to get a picture of what ethical meat practitioners, smallholder farmers and processors are experiencing from business to business. I have heard a diversity of stories which leave me with a lot of questions but also a lot of hope.

For now, business is good. Demand is high, meat is available and regional supply chains are still working. While there is confusion and redirection from the farm gate to the curbside at the butcher shop, there is still very good meat that lived a happy life and was afforded a good death, without degrading but instead improving land as it lived, and was respected and fully utilized after it died. Find it at your local butcher shop, farmers online or curb market, bulk delivery service, or restaurant take out menu. No need to buy $600 worth of beef while you are at it. I’ve talked to butchers and farmers of all kinds who say that they have their processing locked in, they trust the relationships they have built, and they have adequate storage and a shiny new online ecommerce to serve their communities.

I have also talked to farmers who are not sure they will get processing, not sure they will make it through. For sure, folks who have built slaughter into their operations are coming out wise. But even folks who still use third-party slaughter and have been sending regular business to the processor have strong relationships that will probably stand up through this thing. That’s really good news. It shows that there are models, unfortunately not in every community, but there are models that have resiliency, relational foundations, and adaptive capacity who are able to stay the course. This has to come with savvy business planning. So, in other words, know what is up. Keep talking to people. If you’re buying a lot now, great, but as restaurants open, or groceries start to stock again, be careful with your operating capital and your inventory. We don’t expect this to last forever. I spoke with PJ Jackson yesterday, co-owner of Chop Shop Butchery in my hometown of Asheville NC. Chop Shop has a loyal base to begin with, shifted quickly to selling by the package or individual cut instead of the pound, AND they co-own a slaughter facility. So, things are looking good.

PJ said three other things that I really like and want to highlight.

First, he said: “I like my business model. I’m not interested in changing it too drastically.” Meaning- yes, this is a time of opportunity, but keep a level head and don’t lose your values. “We are at capacity now,” he said, in terms of labor and sales volume. “I will do it as long as I can but when I am out, I will be out. I’ve been very clear about that and people are very understanding.” There’s been a lot of talk of pivoting and that’s great, there is great heroism in pivoting but what I like here is don’t pivot off your axis. If you can shift, do it- we need you. If you can’t say so, and be proud of what you’re doing already. Some examples of shifting are not just butcher shops and farms going to online and bulk sales, but USDA plants going to state inspection, retail exempt facilities seeking custom-exempt status, and wholesale products being re-imagined in their new retail versions. If this sounds like Gaelic to you, I suggest following the links I am going to provide in the transcript of this broadcast so you can read up.

Second, he said “I was buyng 500 chickens a week from my supplier when the restaurants closed, and now I can’t get that many. So I called up my guy and said ‘Man, what’s up why can’t I get these chickens” and his guy said “because restaurants are opening.” And PJ said “perfect. Glad to hear it. Spread those chickens around buddy.” Instead of offering 10 cents up on the pound to try and corner the market he’s been dominating along with a couple other shops in our area he acted for the benefit of other folks in the industry. Which keeps a DIVERSE, RELATIONAL, SYNERGISTIC supply system, with many stocks and flows and cogs and levers working. BRAVO, my friend. Another shop owner said he broached this topic with his farmer suppliers, concerned that they may take higher prices to slaughter their hogs for another butcher. Assurances abound that that will not happen. While this isn’t bomb-proof, it’s a testament to relationships in business that can withstand shocks to the system.

Thirdly, he said “one day a week me and one of my shop butchers go up and help out in the slaughter house.” This is awesome. This helps the processor funnel business to other farmers in the community, while the butcher shop maintains its inventory. It also allows the laborers from the shop to skill up in other trades that are essential to the supply chain’s health. I think this is one of the strength points of the small scale system—we can trade efficiencies, we can use family ties and community relationships to ensure that there is work to be done and workers to do it. Apprenticeships, rotations, and cooperation are how we create replicability and dependability in smaller economic platforms.

 

Everyone is worried that customers won’t keep buying. This is reasonable. Dan Barber predicts that everyone can’t wait to go back to the grocery. My own people are wondering whether meat prices will go down like gas prices have gone as plants begin to re-open and product hits store shelves again. Well, considering the economic pressure on American eaters (always and especially right now) that is probably true. 30 million people are unemployed right now. We are headed into what not only is a certain leveling off of this busy time for local food businesses, but also a certain depression-level economic struggle in 2021. That being said, it is going to be rough. But I have three more things I want you to remember:

1)    We are seeing a rise in commitment to animal shares and meat CSAs. This means customers investing in a farmers herd and owning the animals from the get-go (which happens to be a brilliant way to bypass some hefty slaughter and packaging bottlenecks, by the way) and/or signing up ahead of time to get their meat from a local provider for the rest of the season, regardless of what COVID is up to. This, as farmer Jamie Ager at Hickory Nut Gap Meats says, “is a commitment to long term support.” By a hugely higher margin of people. “We are up to 400 members”.

2)    There is a lot of talk about habit building, then, as I discuss this with industry people. So, neighbor Carlos has discovered that there is this very reliable source of meat just five blocks from him, and he can feel good about where it comes from, and he likes the guy who owns it, and it’s super easy to order online and pick up curbside. Maybe even easier than schlepping across town to the discount meat barn. Perhaps Carlos has a new groove. Also, PJ, and Jamie, and Lytisha, and all my other business owners are feeling really good about this new online platform they’ve developed, and they know that this system of doing business with the people will continue. New habits, new norms.

3)    We should not underestimate the power of quality and of story. Carlos likes this local meat better. Carlos appreciates the work of the farmer and the butcher. While it may be relief for him to take the last scraps of his stimulus check to the Sams Club to stock up on meat after COVID, the quality of the meat from the local butcher, and the story and relationship that came with it is lodged like a seed in his left molar. Ignorance surpassed, forgetfulness weighted by soul-feeding food and community. He will be back, when he CAN. Let’s not forget all the other things that might keep Carlos away from PJ’s shop. It isn’t always easy.

 

Which brings me to another point about habits. I was particularly taken by my new friend farmer Jon Jackson’s viral post earlier this week demonstrating his anger and exhaustion with the lack of interest or understanding for whole carcass utilization. I shared it on Facebook. . Anyway for those of you who aren’t in the food biz or even some of you who are, we have a problem in our society of disproportionately preferring tender cuts of meat, which represents about 30% of an animal’s carcass (give or take, depending on several factors), and a way of hyping up cuts of meat that aren’t super plentiful (example: hangar steak, there is only one per cow), and this stems from a lot of stuff like improper education and cost analysis in the restaurant sector, prioritization of “fast” food and the loss of cooking knowledge, and the devaluation of holistic farming and thirving farmers. Maybe see meat school episode 2 if you want more juicy details there. But what poor carcass utilization means is that farmer Jon has been in the unfortunate position of trying to cater to a mis-educated and priority-confused customer base for many years, and struggles to sell the whole animal or find enough customers who will make thorough use of the animal in a way that does it justice. And even though he started his farm to solve problems he finds himself forced into inconvenient truths over and over again because of some of these subpar standards that are unfortunately built in to the farm to table system. Not intentionally, mind you but as an inevitable fall out of the hip-ness of “saying” you buy local or source sustainably.

And yes, there are chefs and consumers out there who do use the carcass beautifully and farmer Jon knows some of them and is happy to work with some of them. The post was not about “ignoring” the good guys. It was about pointing out that there aren’t enough of them. And his response, given the facts laid bare about meat over the last few months, is that he is awakening to a business model that does not cater to the ignorance and built-in nonchalance being excusable. In order to form new habits among the small business community. Which I think is fantastic. For a lot of reasons, but namely, a couple that we should highlight here:

 

1)    We should use the awkwardness of these times to talk about shit that just hasn’t been working. And we should probably not, those of us who are in this together, blame each other for whining or negtativity while we are at it. Because let’s be honest, there is a culture of meat eating that is not supportive of holistic, healing, animal and earth honoring and people sustaining agriculture and it needs to be called out. And if you choose to call it out with all the emotion you have been carrying as a farmer capitalizing a better world with your money, sweat and tears for the last however many years, please do so. I believe there is a place for anger, here, my friends. Backwards behaviors lead to suffering. Let’s not all pretend we can deal with that stoically, or that we should. If you don’t holler, some people won’t know there’s a hitch in the getalong.

2)    The beef is not “with restaurants” . like the local farmer doesn’t believe in and invest in the local chef. Local farmers support local chefs. Local chefs support local farmers. We are all part of this. I think what Jon’s post hollers out in that brave way of hollering is something that needs to be squarely stated here and now: This pandemic is the catalyst for the conversation about how the economics of the small farm AND the economics of the small restaurant have neither one of them been easy or set up for success. Yes, there are educational hurdles, and yes there are chefs who take advantage and what not, but there is also just a situation where chefs are strapped too, and caught between the rock and the hard place of customer expectation/familiarity and tight profit margin too…just like the farmer. And this conversation allows us to re-imagine it in both spheres—both chefs and farmers. I’m seeing recently that the James Beard Foundation is re-directing all of its staff and resources toward this “Open for Good” Campaign which is about getting help to the struggling hospitality industry but also about re-imaging it to be more sustainable. So I look forward to seeing what we can do about this together. 

I hope you are starting to see how some of the confusion, questioning, revealing, quick-shifting, and decision making going on because of all this is the ACTUAL DOING OF WORK that has needed to be done for a while. This is good. It’s not shiny or all calculating by any means, but its like short hashmarks on the wall every day to keep us going kind of thing.

 

I’ve heard a lot about labor, too, so I want to hit on that though I am so very not ready to talk deeply about all the labor stuff that we need to talk about when it comes to meat school. I’m working on that. But something in the Dan Barber article that struck me was his call for a labor force of out-of-work line cooks and others taking to the fields and cut rooms and helping the farmers through this time of high volume, high inventory, low capacity grinding. My sister and Chef Beth Littlejohn also called this out on IG. Now there’s some wrinkles here for sure, pertaining to the fact that we’re all nervous about bringing people on in the time of a pandemic, but I think it is true that businesses in the smaller scale economy are going to be super ready to support out of work people when it becomes safer and holy moly are we going to see a skillshare like never before. I’m so ready for it. And think of the ramifications of line cooks or lunch ladies bent over a row of sweet-smelling soil! That shit is life changing, and those people are going to carry it with them.

There’s also the issue of how these good people get paid. Yes, the farmers and butchers have more business but we don’t know what margins allow for. And so we may have to look at civic support for this labor corps, and maybe some cost-sharing between producers and buyers to keep the products coming up from the seed to the table. Kind of exciting. The other thing I want to throw out to you folks who are working on this is let’s think about throwing in some education to these efforts. If we have a passel of line cooks out in the greenhouse can we take a short break for a virtual learning session on something that they couldn’t cover thoroughly at culinary school? As an extra thank you for trading your kitchen clogs for boots you get to learn something that you may not have the opportunity to learn through the normal channels. You get to learn something that makes you a more powerful soldier in this movement, like butchery, slaughter, charcuterie, advanced fermentation, organoleptic training, wines, cheesemaking? HACCP training? It’s worth a thought. It’s worth a look-see for you non profiteers out there and educators like myself and organizers of all stripes.

 

Also. Food hubs. Local and regional food has struggled forever to scale up, and one way that allows small potatoes to scale up is to aggregate (gather all the little potatoes into one big pot) and then distribute (send the big pot out to all the hungry people from one point to cut down on labor and processing). Food hubs achieve this. And the pandemic is bringing out new food hubs, strengthened food hubs, and creative models. IN my own Asheville we have the Patchwork Producers Alliance, which is an online marketplace that is cooperatively owned. Customers can sign up and order products from many producers of all scale on the internet, join as a member to get deliveries, offer to pick up their stuff, or even work in exchange for store credit. On the back end, there are some hard-working people creating warehousing and drop points for all the producers to aggregate their product, and then moving the product out from there to the community. They will be fully launching in June, and they are seeking more customers. They are setting up EBT and Double up Food Bucks as well as running food access initiatives. This is awesome, game-changing stuff for the food movement. It hits on scaling, accessibility, relationships and cooperation, shared governance, hybrid economics, and so much more. The organizers, Vanya Wenger and Sunil Patel are looking for a south Asheville aggregation hub—so warehouse, kitchen, other storage and loading space for their Hendersonville/Mills River/South Asheville producers. So if you are sitting on some real estate or a large kitchen facility there and you want to lease or cooperate, stand up. Also they are committed to the replicability of their model and want to be in conversation with other folks who have created cooperative food business, or want to create these businesses. Their website is patchworkalliance.com and if you click “Directory” you can hit them up directly.

One more thing and I will shut up for the weekend. REGULATION. This is admittedly not my strong suit but I am learning and I want to storm the Hill some day when I’m ready but there are some things on the table pertaining to meat supply and we need to talk about it.

 

1.     PRIME Act. This is a bi-partisan piece of legislation that was introduced some time ago and if passed, it would allow Custom Exempt facilities to slaughter and pack meat for re-sale. If this is hard to cipher for you it basically means that there are quite a few facilities that can kill animals for personal consumption, but they cannot sell or donate the meat or package the meat for resale or donation. The PRIME Act would provide for these facilities to be able to do that. Now, Joel Salatin has been touting this and so a lot of people are trying to revive it but a very savvy person in small meat processing, Rebecca Thistlethwaite, took it to task for me today very succinctly.

No to the PRIME Act. Less than 0.1% of meat sold in the US as of now is from custom exempt facilities, and while no one has gotten sick from it, we don’t have science to tell us if someone has gotten sick, and I guarantee that some of our states without a robust state regulation framework would struggle to provide safe oversight on a higher percentage of custom exempt meat. We have the safest meat supply in the world. We don’t’ want to mess that up.

The better alternative is Sen. Mike Rounds’ bill that would allow meat from state inspected facilities to be sold across state lines. State inspected meat has be equal to federally inspected meat—same standards. If it is equal to federally inspected meat it should be able to be sold across state lines. If meat from Brazil that is equal to can be sold in the US, then US grown and processed meat that is equal to should also be available through interstate commerce. Rebecca by the way is the Director of the Niche Meat Processors Assistance Network, out of Oregon and has been supporting small processors for a long time. They are very busy now as you can imagine. If you have questions please go to their website and READ, my friends. The website is a plethora of information for people wanting to start plants, wanting to learn about mobile processing, wanting to know what levels of inspection mean and what oversight is expected.

2.      Speaking of meat from Brazil, there is also the issue of Country of Origin Labeling or COOL as you may have heard it mentioned, which was eliminated several years ago, but should be revisited. It’s elimination deprives us of transparency in labeling and allows meat that is imported but processed in a US facility to be labeled “product of USA”.

3.     Have a look at Anti-Trust Legislation from Senator Cory Booker. This is about a moratorium on agribusiness mergers that lead to consolidation and crowd out options for slaughter and processing within the federal inspection program.

 

As always, it’s a fight on all the fronts.

To the people who have been and are working on a just, safe, holistic, and regenerative food supply: THANK YOU. Thank you, and stay the course. While we are being shown our weak points we are also scratching those hashmarks every day and the strong points are getting stronger.

To those of you organizing new initiatives to that end and thinking about how to put workers to work and get the education online and keep this movement growing past its blind spots and weak points: YES. Now’s the time.

To those of you who have had a big stake in this and you are pretty sure you’re going down: I SEE YOU. WE see you. This will not be easy. Ask for help. Maybe there’s no money to save your business but there are people who can help you keep your eyes on your family and your spirit while your pride is getting ripped to shreds and your savings are being gutted. I’ve been there. I am a shining example of failure. My failure is one I wear proudly as part of the record of trying. If you’re going down now, I will not try to shine any light on it for you but I will say, you are part of that record too, regardless of whether it works out in the long run.

With that, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes, from the wise and wonderful Joanna Macy –

“There is absolutely no excuse for making our passionate love for the world dependent on what we think of it's degree of health, whether we think it's going to go on forever."

OK. I’ve got to go wrangle some rams. Thanks for listening, and I hope you all have a good weekend. Oh, and Meat School is on hiatus next week because I’m getting married. I’ll see y’all again on June 5th. Until then, keep it coming. Keep reaching out. Peace.