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....According to data collected by FERN, as of April 23 at 12pm ET, at least 12 meatpacking plants and three processed food plants are currently closed, and a total of 58 have reported cases of Covid-19. At least 2,460 workers are confirmed sick and at least 17 have died.
......
Although there is no immediate risk of food shortages, experts say the massive scale of these meatpacking plants, especially in the beef and pork sectors, means that reduced processing capacity at one plant can have an outsize impact on the meat supply. The shift over time towards fewer, larger plants has exposed the industry to more risk from disease outbreaks.
“At this stage, you can still meet consumer demand,” says James MacDonald, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Maryland who formerly worked for 30 years at the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. “But it’s starting to get a little scary.”
:tiphat:https://thefern.org/2020/04/mapping-...essing-plants/
More than 5,000 U.S. meat, food-processing workers exposed to coronavirus: union
1 MIN READ
CHICAGO (Reuters) - More than 5,000 U.S. meat and food-processing workers have been infected with or exposed to the new coronavirus, and 13 have died, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union said on Thursday, hitting the ran...:tiphat: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKCN2253D0
....The recent Tyson plant closures mean that about 18% of hog-slaughtering capacity is completely offline. Glendinning says the supply chain has been “dramatically interrupted.”
“If you look at USDA public data, you will see that pork and beef production across the industry is down 20% to 30%. That’s 20% to 30% less meat arriving at your table. That creates a very significant problem for farmers, as well,” he said. “Remember, these folks are growing animals that are going to be ending up on your table, and they have no place to go.”...:tiphat:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tyson...185758662.html
(Bloomberg) -- An inspector from the U.S. Department of Agriculture has died after apparently contracting Covid-19, according to information the federal agency provided Thursday during a phone call with consumer groups.
The USDA didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Two participants on the call corroborated that the death was disclosed on the call.
“If USDA had acted more quickly to ensure worker safety, they could have prevented the disease from spreading across the meat industry as it has,” says Sarah Sorscher of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who was on the call. “Instead, we have massive shutdowns and worker deaths. All that delay and lack of action is going to make it much harder to bring these outbreaks under control.”..:tiphat:https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/usda-ins...eaks-1.1426096
TYSON FOODS CLOSES THIRD PLANT THIS WEEK AFTER WORKERS TEST POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS
BY MEGHAN ROOS ON 4/23/20 AT 1:19 PM EDT
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A Tyson Fresh Meats plant in Pasco, Washington is the latest Tyson Foods meat processing facility to close after employees tested positive for COVID-19. It joins the company's largest plant in Waterloo, Iowa and another in Logansport, Indiana in closing despite the company's stated attempts to implement social distancing measures at the facilities.
The plant in Waterloo has been connected to at least 180 COVID-19 cases in the state, according to the Associated Press. A report by the AP, published Wednesday, said the plant was closing temporarily in response to pressure from the community and concern among its employees, many of whom were staying home out of fear of contracting the virus due to difficulties of following social distancing guidelines in the workplace...:tiphat:https://www.newsweek.com/two-tyson-f...9622?piano_t=1
....Gray is calling for Covid-19 testing to be done not only in laboratory settings but in meat production facilities where animals may be more stressed and already have other respiratory diseases, potentially making them more vulnerable.
“What if [the virus] is silently causing infections and being amplified in pork or poultry production?” he said. “What if Sars-CoV-2 [the coronavirus] is silently multiplying in pigs and causing farmers to be at increased risk? We don’t know, but it’s something we would like to look at and rule out, and to do so we need to employ a One Health technique.”...
:tiphat:https://www.scmp.com/news/china/soci...its-called-one
ON APRIL 23, 2020 Sofina Foods reports first COVID-19 case
Worker at plant in Calgary, Alberta, tests positive
Canadian poultry company Sofina Foods reported its first case of COVID-19 on April 23.
An employee at its plant in Calgary, Alberta, tested positive for the coronavirus.
Sofina Foods, in a press release, shared the actions the company took to proactively prepare for the risks associated with the COVID-19 outbreak and how they helped effectively manage its response after the employee tested positive.
"The employee has been self-isolating at home and is doing well." said Gerry Beadle, operations director, Calgary at Sofina Foods. "We had anticipated this possibility as part of our COVID-19 business continuity planning and had identified proactive measures to mitigate risks to our employees. A lot of initiatives were already in place following guidance and best practices from the Public Health Agency of Canada and the industry."
Sofina Foods reviewed its current COVID-19 practices with the Alberta Health Services, which confirmed that the company had taken all necessary measures to protect the health of their employees and prevent further spread of the virus in its plant. The plant is fully operational.
13 U.S. meat plants are down - 25% of pork and 10% of beef
Deena Shanker, Michael Hirtzer, Jen Skerritt and Lydia Mulvany, Bloomberg
Published 8:28 am CDT, Friday, April 24, 2020
The U.S. is edging closer to possible meat shortages with another major plant shut down.
About a quarter of American pork production and 10% of beef output has now been shuttered, according to the United Food & Commercial Workers, which estimates that 13 U.S. plants are down.
On Thursday, Tyson Foods said it was shutting its beef facility in Pasco, Washington, fresh on the heels of the company idling two key pork plants. Case counts are continuing to mount, including in Canada, where industry groups are saying they'll probably hold back some supplies usually exported to the U.S. And the head of JBS, the world's top meat producer, is warning of shortfalls.
Meanwhile, 100 U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The workers, part of the Food Safety and Inspection Service that employs about 6,500 inspectors, have been traveling between plants with known infections to other facilities. And at least one inspector has died after apparently contracting the disease the virus causes, Covid-19, according to information the federal agency provided Thursday during a phone call wit...:tiphat:https://www.chron.com/business/artic...e-15223469.php
13 U.S. meat industry workers have died of COVID-19, union says
BY KATE GIBSON
APRIL 24, 2020 / 11:58 AM / MONEYWATCH
The union that represents 250,000 meatpacking and poultry plant workers is calling for improved protections for those on the front lines of sustaining the nation's food supply as the coronavirus spreads.
Ten meatpacking workers and three food processing workers have died of COVID-19, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). In addition, at least 5,000 meatpacking workers and 1,500 food processing workers have been directly impacted by the virus, from testing positive for the disease it causes to missing work due to self-quarantine while they await test results, the labor group said.
The union's tally of fatalities is lower than one compiled by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, The center found that as of April 23 there have been at least 3,400 reported positive cases tied to meatpacking facilities at 62 plants in 23 states and at least 17 reported worker deaths at eight plants in eight states....:tiphat:https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronav...-food-workers/
Americans could start to see shortages of pork, chicken and beef on grocery shelves as soon as May as major packing plants swept by the coronavirus remain shuttered and the nation’s massive stockpiles of frozen meat begin to dwindle.
Any empty shelves to date have been the result of bumps in the supply chain, with stores being unable to restock as quickly as customers are buying. But bacon, pork chops and ham could be the first to face actual shortages: The amount of frozen pork in storage nationwide — more than 621 million pounds — dropped 4 percent from March to April, the USDA reported this week. Slaughter rates are down 25 percent, and 400,000 animals are backed up in slaughterhouses....:tiphat:https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...utdowns-205689
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A JBS SA (JBSS3.SA) poultry plant in southern Brazil was hit by an outbreak of COVID-19, a source close to the company said on condition of anonymity on Friday, marking the first large-scale infection at a Brazil-based meat plant.
Affecting several workers at the meat processing facility in the town of Passo Fundo, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the outbreak follows several others in the United States in recent weeks, including at some JBS-owned plants.
The plant has not been shut but it is being investigated by the labor prosecutor’s office, the source said. A report by news website UOL citing the municipal health authorities said they want the immediate closure of the plant.
The source denied a report by Brazilian news webiste UOL that two family members of workers had died from the disease, adding that the number of people infected at the facility was “less than the 19” that UOL had reported. The source declined to provide an exact number of infected people....:tiphat:https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKCN2262QU
As more and more large meat processing plants close amid the nation's coronavirus pandemic, farmers across the country are running out of physical space for their pigs.
With slaughterhouses shuttered, hog farms became so crowded this week that many farmers have been forced to start killing their pigs en masse, the United Press International reported Thursday. 'This is our biggest crisis ever'
...
"We were already backed up by about a half million. This is bad," he said.
In Minnesota, 200,000 pigs could be killed, David Preisler, CEO of the Minnesota Pork Board, reported. ....
Numerous farms have also started to go out of business as a result of the pandemic, noted Joseph Kerns, president of Kerns & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in livestock. He said it was too soon to predict how many will eventually close, but predicted it could be a huge number.
"This is our biggest crisis ever in pork production," Kerns said. "And I don't say that lightly." Disaster for the food supply chain
Several of those 39 workers have recovered while others are continuing to recover at home, without yet needing hospitalization, Alberti’s letter said.
So far, West Liberty Foods also has sent home 101 other employees identified to have worked in proximity to an employee who has tested positive, and determin
...:tiphat:https://www.thegazette.com/subject/n...virus-20200424
Indiana Packers To Shutter Delphi Facility, Majority Of State's Pork Processing Now Halted
BROCK TURNER
Farmers are left with few options with what to do with live, mature animals.
Another Indiana pork processing facility is closing due to the coronavirus. It’s a move that will place additional pressure on the pork pipeline.
The Indiana Packers Corporation will suspend operations Monday at its Delphi processing facility, according to a letter sent to farmers Friday. It says the move responds to “an increasing number of positive tests of COVID-19 in neighboring communities and reports that Indiana is closing in on the expected peak of infections.”
Currently 15 workers there have confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The action follows a similar decision by Tyson Foods, which closed its Logansport facility earlier this week after more than 100 employees tested positive for coronavirus.
Together, the closures represent a substantial percentage of pork processing capability in Indiana. The impact is significant to farmers as a loss of two main destinations for their mature hogs.
The Indiana Pork Producers estimates 44 percent of all Hoosier pork is processed by the two plants, while the Indiana Farm Bureau pegs the production at close to 70 percent.
....:tiphat:https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/i...ing-now-halted
According to data collected by FERN, as of April 24 at 12pm ET, at least 73 meatpacking and processed food plants have confirmed cases of Covid-19, and at least 15 meatpacking plants and three processed food plants are currently closed. At least 3,581 workers are confirmed sick and at least 17 have died...:tiphat:https://thefern.org/2020/04/mapping-...essing-plants/
Merci, la pr?sentation par carte, cela est p?dagogique. C'est une habitude, dans le cadre des maladies animales, si l'on commence ? appliquer cela aux humains, on avance, un peu . https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer...02.2081475&z=3
La m?me carte pour les ?tablissements de production primaire, dans le cadre du programme ONE HEALTH ?
US reels toward meat shortages, and the world may be next
By MICHAEL HIRTZER AND TATIANA FREITAS | Bloomberg | Published: April 25, 2020
Plant shutdowns are leaving the U.S. dangerously close to meat shortages as coronavirus outbreaks now spread to suppliers across the Americas.
Almost a third of U.S. pork capacity is down, the first big poultry plants closed on Friday and experts are warning that domestic shortages are just weeks away. Brazil, the world's No. 1 shipper of chicken and beef, saw its first major closure with the halt of a poultry plant owned by JBS SA, the world's biggest meat company. Key operations are also down in Canada, the latest being a British Columbia poultry plant.
While hundreds of plants in the Americas are still running, the staggering acceleration for supply disruptions is now raising questions over global shortfalls. Taken together, the U.S., Brazil and Canada account for about 65% of world meat trade.
"It's absolutely unprecedented," said Brett Stuart, president of Denver-based consulting firm Global AgriTrends. "It's a lose-lose situation where we have producers at the risk of losing everything and consumers at the risk of paying higher prices. Restaurants in a week could be out of fresh ground beef."
New U.S. shutdowns are hitting at a dizzying rate. Smithfield Foods Inc., the world's No. 1 pork producer, said Friday it was closing another operation, this one in Illinois. That news hit less than an hour after Hormel Foods Corp. said it was idling two of its Jennie-O turkey plants in Minnesota. A big hog-slaughter facility in Indiana is also shutting. Friday's news added to a flurry of other halts announced in the space of just a few weeks.
2 million chickens will be killed in Delaware and Maryland because of lack of employees at processing plants
By Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, CNN Updated 7:24 AM ET, Sun April 26, 2020
(CNN)Two million chickens on several farms in Delaware and Maryland will be "depopulated" -- meaning humanely killed -- due to a lack of employees at chicken processing plants, according to a statement from Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc.
The reduced employee attendance at the company's plants is a result of "additional community cases of COVID-19, additional testing, and people practicing the 'stay home if you're sick' social distancing guidance from public health officials," the statement reads.
The chickens will be depopulated "using approved, humane methods" that are accepted by the American Veterinary Medical Association ....:tiphat:https://us.cnn.com/2020/04/25/us/chi...and/index.html
'Unprecedented emergency': USDA offers to help pork producers find new processors — or depopulate herds
Donnelle Eller, Des Moines Register
Published 4:18 p.m. CT April 25, 2020
The federal government says it will help U.S. pork producers find new processors — or potentially destroy thousands of pigs that have backed up on farms — because large meatpacking plants have slowed or closed due to COVID-19.
Pat McGonegle, CEO of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, said farmers "will need help in a significant way," including culling herds, if the state continues to see a widespread loss of processing capacity.
"The clock is ticking … it's days not weeks" when pork producers will face destroying animals because there's no longer room for them on farms, McGonegle said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said late Friday that livestock and poultry producers face an "unprecedented emergency" after large processing plants have slowed or closed as more than 6,000 U.S. meatpacking workers have become ill or been exposed to the coronavirus....:tiphat:https://www.desmoinesregister.com/st...ds/3026312001/
