OKEMOS, Mich. – Although consumers should have enough meat for their needs, at least for the time being, the novel coronavirus is wreaking havoc for farmers by gumming up the works at a number of meatpacking plants throughout the country, including in Michigan.

The pesky virus that’s swept the world over the past months has infected hundreds of workers at meat processing plants in five states and counting, according to multiple reports. More than 30 employees have tested positive for covid-19 at the JBS USA meatpacking plant in Colorado, which has shut down until at least April 24. Likewise, another JBS plant, in Green Bay, Wis., has temporarily shuttered its operations.   

Experts are saying that consumers need not worry about the supply of beef and pork at this time, however, cattle and hog producers are having to worying. In some places, producers worry about where they are going to take their cattle and hogs. These same pressures, brought about by the virus and the fear of the virus, are at work in Michigan as well, according to George Quackenbush, executive director of the Michigan Beef Industry Commission.

“Certainly the cattle feeders are in pretty dire straits from a marketing standpoint,” Quackenbush said last week. “Cattle ranchers simply don’t have a place to take their cattle; there’s very little marketing opportunity. They’ll still feed their cattle, but this puts ranchers in a very difficult position. If they have to hold their cattle for an extra month, that’s no check for a month, plus they have to keep feeding the animals for another month, which they weren’t expecting. It’s a significant expense.”

According to Quackenbush, a JBS beef packing plant in Plainwell, Mich., was on the verge of closing as of late last week, even though only one or two people who worked at the plant have tested positive for Covid-19. The problem is workers are afraid to show up for work, where their job requires them to work in close proximity to others. As of last week plant managers were keeping the plant going, albeit at a much slower than normal pace.

“They are trying to keep the plant open, but it’s a much reduced capacity,” Quackenbush said. “From a labor standpoint, it’s getting harder and harder to keep the plant open.”

Quackenbush said life has been made harder for workers, many of whom are migrant families where both spouses work at the plant, and where parents with children home from school earlier in the year than expected are having to figure out how to take care of their kids during the day.

CEO of Michigan Pork Producers Assoc. Mary Kelpinski had much the same message when interviewed last week. She stated there is a real “bottleneck” in the food supply chain right now for pork producers. Although the one pork processor in the state, a Clemens Food Group plant, is running at full capacity, there is a bottleneck there due to the fact that the company’s plant in Hatfield, Pa, is only running at 50 percent capacity, also due to labor issues. The plant in Coldwater is having to handle some of the pork that is normally processed in Hatfield, Kelpinski said.

According to Kelpinski, hog producers right now are losing $40-50 per hog. “Maybe we’re getting past this Covid-19 issue, but we can’t afford to have any more plants close in this country,” she said. She added that pork bellies are at an all time low right now, since a lot of the bacon that’s produced goes to the food service industry, which is pretty much shut down.