Feeds last April have had an overwhelming amount of food supply chain disruptions because of companies shutting down due to the coronavirus pandemic. About a third of meatpacking facilities in the US in change of hogs made a shift offline, and other plants processing cows and chickens have also stopped operating – forcing farmers to end up culling herds and flocks.
For every plant’s closure, farmers have a difficult time selling animals at the market, which leaves them with an overcapacity leading to similar issues that the oil industry is also facing at present. Unlike oil, where after it is pumped can be stored costing the producers more expense; food producers choose a simpler method: killing off their livestock.
The imbalance this has created has been previously explained: Live cattle prices crash, while finished meat prices soar. This doesn’t just affect the farmers, but the consumers as well because it will eventually lead to a shortage of meat available in the grocery stores.
In a warning that could keep the food prices high for a long time, Tyson Foods posted in a full-age ad in the New York Times last month that the “food supply chain is breaking.”
John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods and patriarch of the company’s founding family wrote on their website, as well as several newspapers:
“As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain.”
“The food supply chain is breaking.”
This confirms the fears of consumers of meat as the company was forced to close their plants. The federal, state and local government all need to work together to allow plants to operate safely, “without fear, panic or worry” among their employees.
He also added that shortages of meat will be felt in grocery stores because of at least a dozen meatpacking plants’ closure.
The president of Global AgriTrends, a Denver-based consulting firm, Brett Stuart comments on this situation as “absolutely unprecedented.”
“It’s a lose-lose situation where we have producers at the risk of losing everything and consumers at the risk of paying higher prices,” he said.
Also last month, one of the top pork producers in the world Smithfield Foods also closed an operation in Illinois. This was after Hormel Foods closed two Jennie-O turkey plants located in Minnesota. Other poultry plants in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware have all reduced hours because of a shortage in their employees due to Covid-19 sicknesses.
Smithfield released a statement saying:
“During this pandemic, our entire industry is faced with an impossible choice: continue to operate to sustain our nation’s food supply or shutter in an attempt to entirely insulate our employees from risk. It’s an awful choice; it’s not one we wish on anyone.”
Here are the latest closures of meatpacking plants across the country, according to Bloomberg:
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