The US pork industry is concerned the coronavirus pandemic
could exacerbate an already severe labor shortage on farms and in packing
plants.
Economist Joe Kerns, president of Iowa-based Kerns &
Associates, says the labor shortage already has packing plants running at
reduced capacity. “If we start to
combine that with some absenteeism that might be associated with the
coronavirus, or forbid we might introduce it into one of these facilities that
would delay their operations and lead to some type of shutdown for cleanup, certainly
that all cascades back down to the producer level,” he says.
