Last week, with the two biggest hog processing plants in Indiana shut down, hog farmers were looking at financial disaster.
After President Donald Trump signed an executive order under the Defense Production Act on Tuesday to compel meat processors to remain open, they’re not sure what could happen.
And the rest of the community also has its concerns about Tyson Foods Inc. in Logansport reopening.
The rate of COVID-19 infection was so great, the Cass County Health Department has been testing all Tyson employees by appointment on site.
On Wednesday, Cass County Health Department Administrator Serenity Alter put the number of positives for Tyson at 890 with 181 testing negative, 100 more tests to be done and the rest of the results pending.
Tyson employs about 2,200 people.
Indiana Packers Corp. in Delphi shut down Friday after 10 positive tests for COVID-19 were found and is testing employees with intentions to re-start business as soon as possible.
Tyson spokeswoman Hli Yang stated by email, “We’re still working with local health officials on a plan to resume production as soon as we believe it to be safe for our team members.”
Indiana Packers Vice President of Corporate Planning Jeff Feirick also indicated that his company hadn’t set an exact date.
He referred to a previous press lease that stated, “After employee testing is complete, officials at IPC will identify a date to resume operations.”
The two facilities are also among the 15 largest in the United States.
The closing of meat packers around the country has created a surplus of hogs, made worse as the demand from schools and restaurants when down sharply and the export markets have slowed.
Jim Mintert, director of Purdue’s Center for Commercial Agriculture, said hog farmers anticipated healthy profits for the first time in years because U.S. exports to China, where a flu virus killed a huge swath of the country’s pigs, were expected to skyrocket.
The pork council estimated that farmers generally expected approximately $10 per hog on average for 2020, based on industry analyst forecasts
They’re now projected to lose nearly $37 per remaining hog.
“It’s going to affect all farmers in the long run,” said Cass County Farm Bureau President Kurt Wilson.
To slow weight gain on hogs ready for slaughter, farmers adjusted with less feed and more corn than soybeans in the feed.
“It could cause problems with corn and soybean [farmers],” Wilson said. And those farmers are already having financial difficulties because of export issues.
Some farmers have been able to move hogs to plants in Iowa that are back in operation, he said. Reopening local plants would help, but it’s a question of when they start up and the capacity Logansport’s Tyson will have with so many employees sick.
“I don’t know if they’ll ever get back to full capacity [soon],” Wilson said. “There’s still a lot of animals that need to go.”
That throttles the farmers’ operations.
“The hog industry is always on a tight schedule,” he said.
Farmers usually have two sets of barns to meet with sows’ cycle of births — two per year. After being weaned from their mothers after 14 days, the piglets then go to a feeding barn/finishing facility to get to the proper weight, which takes five-and-a-half to six months.
This dual facility also allows the farmers to wash down one set of barns for the next batch of piglets coming in.
Because hog farmers aren’t just continually putting hogs in the same place without cleansing in between, the United States doesn’t have the problems with swine disease that other countries do. However, the sows have already been bred and are about to produce a new litter of piglets.
Hog farmer Russel Foust of Galveston, who raises 8,000 hogs, said he was in the process of marketing a batch.
“So we’re pretty far behind,” he said.
Mark Chambers of Galveston, who raises about 4,000 hogs, said that between Tyson and IPC, the companies slaughtered about 30,000 hogs a day.
“That’s a lot of hogs out there that need to be sold,” he said.
Although hog farmers can change feed to slow growth — the opposite of normal farming — they can’t store it until prices change, as corn growers could do.
Jayson Lusk, department head of agricultural economics at Purdue University, said euthanizing piglets could become a real possibility if processing plants continue to stay closed.
Foust said farmers had already started doing that in Minnesota, but he doesn’t know of it happening in Indiana yet.
“It’s pretty much up in the air, but it can’t be ruled out yet,” he said.
He hopes that he can get his hogs in and see minimal financial damage, although he can’t predict what will be. He also understands all sides of the issue.
“I get it. You don’t need a bunch of sick people in there working. But even if they’ve got enough healthy people to work one shift, that’s enough to get hogs into the plant,” he said.
Chambers said that half capacity is better than nothing and added that there’s nothing wrong with the meat itself.
But no one knows what the plants need and what the consumers will demand.
The reopening of meat processors was brought up during the weekly Covid-19 Community Preparedness Call that Logansport Memorial Hospital hosts for non-profits, government entities and other organizations to help cooperation in battling COVID-19
“I had mixed feelings when I read that yesterday,” said LMH’s CEO Perry Gay. “I don’t think that, for our community, it’s the best decision.”
He is optimistic that the most damage has already been done by the virus and that measures will be in place for safety. However, there are also the concerns that those who’ve had COVID-19 can be infected with it again.
“We’re hopeful that it’s not going to be another massive escalation,” he said.
Alter said that she and Cass County Commissioners will tour the Tyson facility on Thursday.
“We’re planning on working with them to work through the process so we can see what needs to happen for them to reopen, especially now with Trump’s new order,” she said.
Billy Williams, a union steward at the Tyson plant, was not happy when he heard Trump wanted to reopen the processing plants.
“I’m outraged that the man could make a decision like that ... he’s blind to what’s going on,” Williams said.
Williams has tested positive and has symptoms, which he’s fighting at home.
Williams said Trump should work on the line to experience what they’re feeling, and the reopening should come with some conditions. He also wants the testing completed, to see changes in the plant and to see hazard pay for workers risking their lives.
“I want to know what the doctors and scientists say, not what the managers say,” he said.
Logansport resident Jane Dailey said she is also concerned about impact.
“I am terrified if they reopen and don’t do things differently, the community’s going to suffer. I think they have a responsibility to the community, not just to a profit,” Dailey said.
“I am traumatized by what the virus is doing to my community,” she said.
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