Meat shortages in the U.S. could be “dangerously close” as more meatpacking plants are forced to shutter during the coronavirus pandemic, Michael Hitrtzer and Tatiana Freitas write for Bloomberg News.
U.S. pork capacity is down almost a third, big poultry plants have started to close, and Brazil and Canada — the other two biggest meat exporters — are also seeing plant closures, Keith Good reports in a roundup of stories for Farm Policy News at the University of Illinois.
Meanwhile, wholesale beef and pork prices are soaring and milk prices have dropped to their lowest point in 12 years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture promised Friday to help pork producers find new processors or dispose of the thousands of pigs clogging up their feedlots with nowhere to go.
An investigation published last week by USA Today and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting (along with a frequently updated database) revealed that the scale of COVID-19 cases among meatpacking plants was worse than had been publicly known.
In Kentucky, at least 200 meatpacking employees have tested positive for COVID-19, and one worker has died. Plants in Western Kentucky have been affected, according to this story from WKMS, the public radio station at Murray State University.
(The Rural Blog is published by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky.)
The Rural Blog is a publication of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues based at the University of Kentucky.
