U.S. Pork Sector Calls for Government Action to Avert Labor Shortage Crisis

Mar 23, 2020

The National Pork Producers Council is urging government to take action to help to prevent an escalating labour shortage resulting from initiatives to prevent the spread of COVID-19 from becoming a crisis. The U.S. pork sector, which operates year-round, uses the H-2A visa program for specialized work but is constrained by its seasonal limitation and hog farmers rely on the TN visa program, which taps labor from Mexico so the U.S. State Department's suspension of visa processing in Mexico threatens to worsen the labor shortage.

Craig Andersen, a pig farmer from Centerville, South Dakota and a member of the NPPC Board of Directors, says at a time when the processing plants are already working with less than full shifts, they can't afford any additional hiccups.

Clip-Craig Andersen-National Pork Producers Council:

For example, a bunch of the schools have closed in some of the states. We're on our first week of school closing and now the Governor had requested that we have another week of school closing. For child care we're starting to lose some workers to stay home and take care of the kids and things like that.

If we start losing some there, if some start getting sick and they need to stay home for the two weeks, we need to have somebody that we can backfill into the labour supply, especially on the packing plant end. The farm situation isn't maybe quite as bad.

Trucking is also another place where we don't need to lose any workers and lose any truck drivers. Timing is crucial. Most of these pig flows are working on such a tight schedule any more, you might have only a two or three day turn around in some of the flow. If we have very much of a hiccup that snowballs through the entire chain.

Source : Farmscape

Video: What Does 20 MILLION Hogs a Year Look Like?

?? The Multi-Plant System Processing 20 Million Hogs Annually in the Midwest JBS USA operates multiple large-scale pork processing facilities across the Midwest, including major plants in Iowa, Minnesota, and Indiana. Combined, these facilities have the capacity to process approximately 20 million hogs annually.

Each plant operates high-speed automated slaughter systems capable of processing up to 20,000 head per day, followed by fabrication lines that break carcasses into primals, sub-primals, and case-ready retail products.

Hog procurement is coordinated through electronic marketing platforms that connect regional contract finishing operations and independent producers to plant demand schedules. This digital procurement system allows for steady supply flow and scheduling efficiency across multiple facilities.

Processing plants incorporate comprehensive food safety systems, including pathogen intervention technologies, rapid chilling processes, and integrated cold-chain management. USDA inspection is embedded throughout the harvest and fabrication stages to ensure regulatory compliance and product integrity. Finished pork products — from bulk primals to retail-ready packaged cuts — are distributed through coordinated logistics networks serving domestic and export markets.