(Lakefield, Mn.)– The temporary closure of the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls has turned an already very difficult situation for area farmers into even more of a dire one. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield tells KUOO news for many pork producers in the region it’s quickly turning into a crisis situation…
“They’re really scrambling to find other packing plants, you know, to sell hogs at and you know, it’s just really a scramble and the worse thing that’s going to happen is they’ll probably have to hold some of these hogs and get heavier weights and then the other thing is, you know, really a pig flow issue as far as new pigs coming in, you know, they really have a system and a flow, you know, with getting iso-weans in and getting fat hogs out. And so it’s really a challenge and then, you know, the prices just plummeted. It’s really a crisis situation, Steve. I really don’t have a good answer. I guess the biggest thing is they’re just going to have to try and see if some other packing plants, you know, can take some of these hogs and get them harvested and some how keep this back up from occurring.”
Nesseth adds other than looking for other processors, there just aren’t any quick solutions to the situation…
“I really have a lot of sympathy and just hope for the best. I wish I had some great solutions but I don’t. On the crop side, you know, we do have the federal crop insurance. I think that’s going to help a lot of our producers there, but right now these next couple, three months for the livestock industry, until we kind of get this economy going and this coronavirus in check, you know, it’s going to be a tough sled for everyone.”
Nesseth says in the meantime hopefully the situation with the packing plants will get turned around soon.
