April 17, 2020

 

Meat producers call on US government to bulk buy meat

 

 

With the closure of meat-processing plants across the US due to the COVID-19 pandemic, pork producers are asking the government to consider buying large quantities of meat.

 

Other livestock farmers are seeking answers about the kind of support they can expect to receive from the latest stimulus bill.

 

The shuttering of several major facilities—including one of the largest pork-processing facilities in the US and a major beef plant in Colorado—has put pressure both on the supply of popular proteins for sale across the country and on the farmers who raise livestock for slaughter.

 

Meat-processing plant closures are threatening more than just the supply of meat on the market; experts say they are also threatening the farmers who could soon have more cows, pigs or other animals on their hands than they can afford to feed or house.

 

"You see pig values plummet significantly, so for many of our farmers, right now it costs more to care for the animal than the value of the hog," said Jim Monroe, a spokesperson for the National Pork Producers Council. "So our farmers are in a dire situation."

 

What the agriculture department will do with the US$9.5 billion for agriculture producers that Congress included in the stimulus bill passed late last month is an open question.

 

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue tweeted last week that his agency is "using all financial resources we have been given to develop a programme that will include direct payments to farmers and ranchers hurt by COVID-19 and other procurement methods to help solidify the supply chain from producers to consumers."

 

The programme, however, has not yet been finalised. "Details on the programme will be forthcoming shortly," a USDA spokesperson said Tuesday.

 

Some industry insiders have warned of a potential meat shortage on the horizon; others have said the US is far from running out of protein while highlighting other consequences of plant closures.

 

In both commercial and public storage, the US has stockpiled 925 million pounds of frozen chicken, 491 million pounds of frozen beef and nearly 662 million pounds of frozen pork, according to the USDA.

 

Monroe said because pork producers operate under a "just-in-time" production system, when one group of pigs is ready to be harvested, another is right behind it. When meat plants close, the live animals can pile up.

 

"We are calling for massive USDA pork purchases as one solution to this," Monroe said. "If the USDA came in and purchased, you know, a large amount of pork, that would go a long way towards relieving this capacity issue."

 

The closure of Smithfield Foods' pork-processing facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Sunday touched off a new wave of fears about the food supply given the increasing numbers of sick or absent workers across industry plants, even those that for now remain operational.