Oliver1 - 5/26/2020 10:34
dabeegmon - 5/26/2020 09:17
Kooiker - 5/26/2020 08:26
farmertom311 - 5/26/2020 05:26 It’s partially (mostly) responsible for it because we’ve so concentrated the production that we shut a handful of plants and cripple the whole country. We shut down a few plants and crippled a major part of What few of the hog farmers are left. If this was 50 years ago and the majority of hog farms 100 sows or smaller and packing plants more spread out To accommodate this more spread out production it would not have been as easy to cripple the meat industry in this country as it has.
So out of all that what I got is that "vertical integration" had nothing to do with the mess were in.
What you're say is that having fewer and larger packing plants opposed to more and smaller packing plants is "partially
(mostly
) responsible for it" which I'd still disagree with.
IMO, select govt bodies and media are mostly responsible for the mess were in, they have people that are more likely to get killed in a car accident on the way to work scared to leave their house over a virus that a lot of people never even know they have.
Would we have been better off with more smaller packing plants? Maybe, but it takes a lot of little plants to replace the plants that do 20k/day and those smaller plants operate at a higher cost.
Well - - - - its somewhat like this - - - - you can have cheap food or you can have reliable food or you can have quality food.
Pick any two - - - - you just can't have all three.
Cheap food has been king in North America for a very very very long time - - - - and imo quality isn't any too hot either. That's been one benifit to this pandemic - - - - pointing out the holes in our food supply system!
)
Would you care to elaborate how any of what you are claiming has a linkage to packing plants being shut down? I always love it when people throw out the pick 2 of 3 business, like the three choices are absolute and exclusive. But whatever makes you feel better.
The NPPC has an interactive map, it takes a little time but you can go thru all 73 plants and see their full capacity and current production.
https://www.pork.org/public-health/what-you-need-to-know-about-covid...
The industry is at 70% app, I really did not see a correlation between "big" ie over 10K per day, and small ie < 4000 let's say. Some big ones are at 100%, some small ones at 60. I know some people want 100 head sow herds, small time production, small local plants. It's just not going to happen.
I spent several years in management of one of the largest ice cream plants in the world. There are many, many advantages to size and scale. The projects we could take on and achieve payback on in a few years were way, way beyond what any small plants could do, it was incredible, and very, very beneficial to the owners. Anybody who thinks we are going to go backwards is nuts. Just like anybody who thinks farmers will ever trade in their 16 row planters for 12 because they lost 1/4 of their rented ground. It doesn't happen.
Edit: The NPPC map is not showing current capacity, probably has to do with Memorial Day shutdown, it is updated every day at 4 pm, may have to check back later in the week.
Piggies.
