At recent earnings calls, shareholders of some publicly traded meat companies asked whether things like the Trump administration’s deportation plans would pose challenges to their industries. “We’ve been there before. It didn’t affect our business,” Tim Klein, CEO of National Beef, part of Brazilian food company Malfrig, said in response to comments. Ta. Questions from shareholders. Answer to a similar question in Tyson Foods Financial ReportCEO Donnie King said: “There are many unknowns at this time, but regardless of the political party in control, we need to remember that we have been running this business successfully for over 90 years.” spoke.
It’s unclear whether the Trump administration will target meat processing facilities run by the industry’s biggest companies, given the preferential treatment they received during the first Trump administration. During the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, President Trump issued the following executive orders: to keep the factory runningEven if meat processors are part of the hardest hit by infectious diseases. The U.S. House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis later revealed that Tyson’s legal department drafted the document. suggested order.
“These large meat processing companies protect themselves from scrutiny, force workers into dangerous conditions, and sometimes work in concert with political officials in the Trump administration to protect them from harm. “resulting liability for worker illness or death”, the commission concluded. in the report Released in December 2022.
Cesar Escalante, a professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, said labor is tight in meat processing plants and in the agriculture industry as a whole. Escalante said the industry needs more workers and argued that the U.S. should expand the H-2A seasonal agricultural worker visa program to include more livestock workers. There is. Escalante said smaller farms are likely to be affected by the labor shortage, while larger farms may turn to mechanization.
Deporting meat packing workers en masse could lead to higher prices for consumers. Report from Texas A&M AgriLife Research We estimate that removing immigrant workers from U.S. dairy farms would nearly double the retail price of milk. There are many unknowns about Trump’s deportation plan, so it’s unclear how it will affect meat and food prices more generally. “We don’t know yet how this will play out,” Hubbard said.
