"DODGE CITY, Kan. — Visitors to this historic prairie city can’t miss that its economic core is red meat. Two meatpacking plants and a feedlot with thousands of cattle stand just off the road into town. After dark, the evidence — a sometimes overwhelming smell of livestock — is just as obvious.

If there’s a place where concerns about meat’s role in the climate crisis hits home, Dodge and the surrounding countryside are it.

Farmers like Marcella Warner Holman and the companies that deal in beef are experiencing a mix of defensiveness, anger and guarded optimism as they chart a course for survival in a world that’s often telling people to eat less meat or none at all. So far, they say, the messaging war hasn’t shaken Americans’ appetite for steak and burgers — but it’s frustrating nonetheless."

Marc Heller reports for E&E News March 6, 2023. [2]