OMAHA (DTN) -- A congressional report released Thursday spotlighted how executives at major meatpacking companies lobbied the Trump administration to require employees to work in spring 2020 when COVID-19 was causing packing plants to shut down due to sick or scared workers.
More than 59,000 employees at Cargill, JBS, National Beef, Smithfield and Tyson Foods were infected by COVID-19, and at least 269 of those workers died as a result.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis cited dozens of emails and documents -- often correspondence between USDA, White House officials, executives at individual meatpackers and staff at trade associations such as the North American Meat Institute -- to show the major meatpackers "knew the risk posed by the coronavirus on their workers" -- but lobbied and collaborated with industry to reopen packing plants or prevent local health officials from shutting them down. The report also highlights how industry executives publicly made "baseless" claims" of a pending food shortage while at the same time still exporting high volumes of meat.
EARLY DAYS OF PANDEMIC
April 2020 was chaotic and disruptive, as much of the country was in lockdown, but food and agriculture were given exemptions as essential industries. By mid-April, nearly every major packer had at least one packing plant closed. The Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, responsible for processing about 5% of the country's pork, was shut down, as the plant was...
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