Wildfires in the Texas Panhandle — including the Smokehouse Creek fire, the largest in state history — have burned more than 1.3 million acres of land in late February and early March, killing thousands of livestock animals.
At least two people have been killed, along with thousands of cows and other animals, according to news reports. That has led some social media users to tie the fires to a long-running, baseless conspiracy theory that the nation’s food supply is under attack.
“Texas fire deliberate attack on our food supply?” read sticker text on a March 4 Instagram video.
The video shows a clip from the “American Journal” podcast, which is part of InfoWars, a website known for sharing misinformation and conspiracy theories. Host Harrison Smith said the recent wildfires are apparently “just another weird coincidence that happens to align perfectly with everything that the psychopathic, depopulationist, World Economic Forum globalist technocratic scumbags want.” (The World Economic Forum is a frequent conspiracy theory target.)
A caption on the Instagram post agreed, saying, “Working on a video going through every food supply incident the last two years. Sure, accidents do happen occasionally, but this is most definitely deliberate.”
This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The notion that the fire may be a deliberate attack on the U.S. food supply plays into conspiracy theories that have spread for more than two years that globalists are intentionally attacking farms and food production facilities in the U.S. to starve people.
PolitiFact has debunked such claims on several occasions, most recently a claim that falsely alleged 12 million chickens died in a Texas egg farm fire that was set on purpose. That fire was a “noncriminal accident,” authorities there said, and the number of chickens that died was far fewer than 12 million, the egg farm’s CEO said.
(Instagram screenshot)
Although the cause of the Texas wildfires has yet to be officially determined, there’s been no evidence presented by state authorities that shows they were set intentionally.
“Texas A&M Forest Service law enforcement investigators are working in coordination with local law enforcement, and the cause of these fires is under investigation at this time,” Erin O’Connor, a spokesperson for the agency, said in a March 5 email to PolitiFact.
One homeowner whose property was destroyed in the fires has sued Xcel Energy, one of its subsidiaries and a contractor, alleging that a fallen utility pole that wasn’t properly maintained started the Smokehouse Creek fire.
David Anderson, a Texas A&M agricultural economics professor, said the fires aren’t part of a plot to hurt the U.S. food supply.
“Fires happen out on the Great Plains in the spring, especially when it rains the prior fall, causing a lot of grass to grow,” Anderson said. “In winter, the grass freezes and dries down, creating a fuel load for a fire to burn.”
Combined with high winds that move through the Plains in the spring, he said, “you get wildfires.”
Whatever the Texas wildfires’ cause, experts we spoke with said they didn’t expect to see a big effect on the nation’s food supply or consumers.
“These fires will have no effect on the nation’s food supply. They will have no effect on beef prices to consumers,” Anderson said.
A large percentage of Texas cattle are in the Panhandle, but most of those are confined in feedlots and dairies, Anderson said.
“No feedlots or dairies have been hit by these fires. The cattle that have been impacted are beef cows out on ranches grazing rangelands,” said Anderson, noting that’s a “small percentage” of beef cows in the state.
Darren Hudson, a Texas Tech University agricultural and applied economics professor, said any loss of cattle will have some effect on beef prices as the U.S. cattle inventory is at its lowest level since the 1950s.
“I do not think the impact will be enough to ‘damage’ the U.S. food supply,” Hudson said.
Hudson pointed to cattle prices that have remained flat since the fires started. That shows “the market is not anticipating much impact at this time,” he said.
Matt Stockton, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln agricultural economics professor, said there is certainly “economic devastation for those in Texas who have lost their cattle.”
Speculation about how a disaster like this may affect the industry and consumers is often overstated, he said.
“Of course it will have an effect, but the industry is large and has ways to compensate,” Stockton said.
Stockton said the affected area is relatively minor in terms of the whole industry, and other meat products, such as poultry and pork, could be increased quickly if needed.
Our ruling
An Instagram post claimed the Texas wildfires were set intentionally to damage the nation’s food supply.
The fires’ cause remains under investigation, but authorities have not tied them to foul play. A homeowner sued a utility company, alleging that a downed power line started the Smokehouse Creek fire.
Meanwhile, the fires may devastate the ranchers they affect, but they’ll have little impact on the nation’s food supply or consumer prices, agricultural economics experts said. We rate the claim False.
