SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Gov. Kristi Noem says she is hopeful for a quick reopening of the Smithfield pork processing plant where a coronavirus outbreak infected over 700 employees. But she declined to give an exact date for its reopening. After reviewing a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the facility, the Republican governor says the recommendations won’t be difficult to implement. Noem has often stressed keeping businesses open during the global pandemic. She says hog producers have been “devastated” by the shutdown of the plant. She has issued an executive order to allow them to exceed limits on how many animals their facilities can hold.
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Governors in the Midwest are working to keep large meatpacking plants operating despite coronavirus outbreaks that have sickened hundreds of workers and threaten to disrupt the nation’s supply of pork and beef. In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly has sent personal protective equipment and testing supplies to counties with meat processing plants. Gov. Kristi Noem says she doesn’t think it will be difficult to fulfill federal requirements to reopen a shuttered facility in South Dakota. And Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has warned of the dire cost of closing plants, even while acknowledging the certainty of more infection clusters at the facilities.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Restaurant closures due to the coronavirus have contributed to an estimated $5 billion in losses this year for the U.S. pork industry, and almost overnight millions of hogs stacking up on farms now have little value. Some farmers have resorted to killing piglets because plunging sales mean there is no room to hold additional animals in increasingly cramped conditions. After extended trade disputes and worker shortages, this was supposed to finally be the year hog farmers hit it big with prices expected to climb amid soaring domestic and foreign demand. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is promising to send cash and buy stored pork but industry leaders say it might not be enough to stem devastating losses.
