"COVID19 at Meat-Processing Plants Highlights Key Link, and Vulnerabilities, In Food Supply Chain"
We'll have more on this in the next couple days but for now an overview from FarmDoc Daily at the University of Illinois:
Bloomberg writers Stephen Joyce, Michael Hirtzer, and Jen Skerritt reported this week that, “Hundreds of National Guard personnel are being activated in Iowa as coronavirus sweeps through meat-processing plants in a state that accounts for about a third of U.S. pork supply.
“Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said 250 National Guard members have been moved to full-time federal duty status and could help with testing and contact tracing for workers at plants operated by Tyson Foods Inc. and National Beef Packing Co.
Activating guard soldiers is the latest attempt to
contain the disease, which has forced a growing number of
slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants to slow or halt operations.
The Bloomberg writers explained that, “The disruptions are stoking
concerns for eventual fresh-meat shortages in grocery stores as well
leaving some farmers without a market for their animals. That’s pushing down prices for hogs and cattle, while making meat more expensive. Wholesale pork posted its biggest three-day gain in six years.”
“Iowa
Sends National Guard Troops to Defend Meat Plants From Virus,” by
Stephen Joyce, Michael Hirtzer, and Jen Skerritt. Bloomberg News (April
20).And New York Times writers Michael Corkery and David Yaffe-Bellany reported recently that, “Yet meat plants, honed over decades for maximum efficiency and profit, have become major ‘hot spots’ for the coronavirus pandemic, with some reporting widespread illnesses among their workers. The health crisis has revealed how these plants are becoming the weakest link in the nation’s food supply chain, posing a serious challenge to meat production.
“After decades of consolidation, there are about 800 federally inspected slaughterhouses in the United States, processing billions of pounds of meat for food stores each year. But a relatively small number of them account for the vast majority of production.
In the cattle industry, a little more than 50 plants are responsible
for as much as 98 percent of slaughtering and processing in the United
States, according to Cassandra Fish, a beef analyst.”
The Times article indicated that,
Shutting down one plant, even for a few weeks, is like
closing an airport hub. It backs up hog and beef production across the
country, crushes prices paid to farmers and eventually leads to months
of meat shortages.
Likewise, Washington Post writer Laura Reiley pointed out last week that, “The meat supply chain is especially vulnerable to the spread of the coronavirus since processing is increasingly done at a handful of massive plants.”....
Earlier: April 16 "How Covid-19 is impacting various points in the US food & ag supply chain" Well...for one thing you're seeing some empty grocery shelves not
because of food shortages but because so much food was shipped to
restaurants in large containers that, with restaurants closed there is
still demand for those foods but packagers haven't been able to shift to
smaller "family-size" or "individual' containers.
Strange little bottlenecks popping up all over..... April 13 Largest Pork Processor:"....country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply". Because farmers and ranchers can't sell to closed processing plants,
their prices go down at the same time retail supply is curtailed forcing
those prices up, and maybe way up.....
