Kansas City, MO - The fragility of our nation’s meat production is being exposed by COVID-19.
The Missouri Farm Bureau estimates just 15 plants process and package 80% of the United States' pork supply. One of those plants, operated by Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was forced to shut down last week after it became a COVID-19 hotbed.
Smithfield also closed two more plants, one in Wisconsin, and one in Martin City, Missouri on the south side of the Kansas City Metro. The Missouri plant produces spiral hams and gets raw material from Smithfield’s now-closed Sioux Falls facility, The Hill reported.
Because of the law of supply and demand, you may pay a little more for certain pork products, and may not see empty shelves at the grocery store. At least not yet.
Blake Hurst is the president of the Missouri Farm Bureau and says this is all having a big impact on farmers, ranchers and agriculture producers in Missouri.
“Missouri has a couple of large pork plants, and they’re still running," says Hurst. “We’ve gotta get these markets back in some form of normalcy, and the main thing there is to keep slaughter plants that are currently online running.”
Hurst says that if a few more meat production facilities are forced to close down, we could be in trouble.