IARN — President Donald Trump ordered meat processing facilities to reopen in late April by invoking the Defense Production Act.
Processing backlogs persist, however, as packing plants struggle to gain momentum. Producers attempt to accommodate their herds, but are sometimes forced to euthanize healthy pigs.
Representative Steve King (R-4th District) last week introduced House Resolution (H.R.) 7051, which seeks to “provide federal relief to hog producers forced to euthanize hogs, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“We looked at this back in mid- to late March. Predictions were we were going to have one-and-a-quarter million market-ready hogs, and no way for them to get harvested. They would have to be euthanized. That number went from one-and-a-quarter million to three million and (then) seven million. It’s an awful circumstance to have many 300 plus pound hogs that have to be euthanized, and it’s no fault of our producers,” Representative King said.
Representative King wishes to indemnify family farmers and independent producers, who have taken the hardest hit. H.R. 7051 directs the Secretary of Agriculture to make use of Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funds to indemnify producers, in accordance with the following payment structure.
“It sets the value of a market-ready hog, 300 pounds and up, as determined by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture the week they are euthanized. The first 50,000 hogs, it pays 70-percent of the market value. The second 50,000, it pays 55-percent of market value. Then for the next 100,000, 45-percent. If you have more than that, we kept a floor of 35-percent,” Representative King said.
Indemnity payments would be made until “the national processing capacity of hog processing plants is equal to or greater than of such capacity of February 1, 2020, as determined by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.”
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
