The cheapest energy is the energy we’re not using, which is why we need to reduce demand, according to a recent decision by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Likewise, with the price of beef breaking new records every day on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, she is capable of telling us just how much cheaper beef is – if you simply don’t eat it.
But we need to eat something. By von der Leyen’s reasoning, we could just avoid everything, even rent. Renting a house obviously means having to pay the equivalent of a full salary every month. Having nowhere to live is indeed a lot cheaper.
The problem with this reasoning is that instead of dealing with a problem, you’re simply avoiding it. You are confessing that you did not assess the situation properly or early enough so that measures could be taken to deal with the problem and that you are effectively acknowledging that you have run out of solutions.
The case of beef is worth noting. As everyone keeps tabs on gas prices to decide when it’s cheapest to fill up their cars, cattle prices have surpassed $2.50 per pound for the first time in history. In the US, a pound (0.45 kg) of lean ground beef currently costs an average of $8.20, up from $7.48 a year ago and $5.60 a decade ago.
In Greece, the Hellenic Statistical Authority has confirmed that the price of beef has gone up 20% in the last year alone and that it has been going up constantly for the past decade. From €10-13 per kilogram in 2016, it rose to €13-16 in 2020-2021 and then to €15-20 during the inflationary period of 2022-2023, to reach €23-25 today, with the better cuts coming to as much as €30 per kilogram.
Greece, which is purely an importer of beef, already spends over €1 billion annually on imports from various countries, so it relies entirely on international market prices.
Rather than aiming for production levels that can maintain price stability for consumers, European policy in recent years was all about targeting livestock farming as a major source of emissions. Beef was singled out as a primary contributor to environmental pollution. As a result, production began to decline just as consumption was on the rise.
So here we are now, when the only solution for cheap beef is what the European Commission president advised on energy: Don’t consume it.