Posted on 04/30/2020 4:57:48 PM PDT by Kaslin
President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act on Tuesday to keep livestock processing facilities open, a decisive action that will keep our nation’s food supply chain intact and food on kitchen tables. America’s farmers and ranchers — of which I am one — cheer the president’s bold action.
Something drastic had to be done. Meat producers were headed for the proverbial cliff.
Processing of pigs has drastically slowed, swelling herds to the tune of roughly half a million a week! Pig and chicken producers have started “depopulating” their herds, a $2 word for slaughtering and disposing of an otherwise viable food product. Producers have had no choice because several huge agriculture conglomerates have shuttered processing plants and slashed employment rolls after some workers tested positive for COVID-19. So, as you look at potentially empty meat refrigerators at your local grocery, just know there is not a meat shortage — there is a processing shortage.
But there doesn’t need to be. Wasting supply via depopulating — aka wanton slaughtering — is absolutely not what needs to be happening in the middle of a global pandemic and record food demand. We’re already facing one crisis — we cannot let fear lead us to self-inflict another.
Unfortunately, the processing hiccups due to COVID-19 have already resulted in the loss of food, but to succumb to fear and close down our processing plants completely would bring our country’s food supply to a screeching halt.
So I’m glad President Trump has refused to let us fall to our fears. Yes, coronavirus is serious, and all reasonable precautions should be taken. But we cannot allow fear of the virus to shut down our food supply!
At the same time, if workers in these processing environments are going to be asked to remain at work, they should be shown the same respect and given similar safety safeguards as those in the health care industry. They are heroes too by keeping our grocery stores stocked and our bellies full. Imagine enduring quarantine with nothing to eat!
That’s why every American should be concerned for the safety and security of these workers, but so should the companies that employ them. Companies must ensure workers have the protective equipment necessary and must keep facilities and production lines sanitary. Employees should be monitored for symptoms and coronavirus tests available to immediately identify any employee who should not be on the production line. Simple steps like these, which many companies are implementing, will build confidence among consumers and processing plant workers that our food supply is clean and safe. This would also be a great time for processing facilities to bump up compensation to incentivize workers and recognize the important burden they are shouldering for all of us during this crisis.
Of course, the agricultural industry still faces great challenges, and even without the COVID-19 threat a slew of innovations is needed to increase the security and reliability of our food supply. Luckily, advances are being made in farm biosecurity, blockchain technology and satellite and drone utilization that will increase efficiency, lower costs and bolster the safety of food products.
President Trump’s order to keep meat processing plants open isn’t a flashy one, but it’s a decision that will keep America safer, stable and fed. Already livestock futures have soared in response to the president’s announcement — along with producers’ confidence.
When the food is gone, we have each other
Thought DJT was Eddie Haskell for a moment.
LOL. Or, as the missionaries said to each other when the cannibals lit the pot, "We're all in this together!"
Strange headline, and that’s all I’m going to say.
Canabalism?? Lol!
BEAVER.
Ward was a little hard on it last night.
It is one step above life support. The whole supply chain is being destroyed.
If everything went back to normal tomorrow, the damage done is years away from being healed. Most people have no clue what has been done to our economy.
It is so horrible to see how willing to surrender liberty people have been. They have flashed a huge green light to the wannabe despots. Send them newly created electronic money, created from nothing, backed by nothing, and they roll over.
I get up every day watching a train wreck in slow motion and marvel at how few people see the abyss looming before us. I half wish I was religious so I could see some meaning in what is happening and what is surely coming.
“...a global pandemic and record food demand”
There is no record food demand. There are the same number of people eating the same amount of food. Demand has shifted to majority eating at home instead of majority eating at restaurants.
Apparently in this “greatest nation on earth” we have become such pathetic snowflakes, beholden to regulations and terrified of lawyers that we can’t handle a new kind of flu without upheaval in every facet of our society.
If Ford and GM can make ventilators (which no one needs), then the commercial food producers that supply restaurants can find a way to package food for residential consumers.
This is another manufactured crisis, and the leaders on “our side” are apparently incapable of handling it. The Defense Production Act? So there is pork in the grocery store? Because of the flu? Please.
I know it’s the author’s name, but there’s gotta be a joke or two in that byline.
Dave Barry once speculated on what it would have been like for a real boy to grow up being known to all as “The Beaver”.
Especially the middle school years, with Eddie Haskell as one’s older brother.
OK, I’m glad the President is doing this, but how will it help specifically?
If the slaughterhouses/meat packers are closed because workers are too afraid to appear, how can the production pipeline continue, even if the President orders it?
Until we’re slaughtering and butchering thousands (millions?) of animals a day, the farm is still going to overflow, and they can’t afford to keep feeding them if no one is buying.
I would like to have a look at the farmer who zeroed out his livestock and took that loss because he did not have a truck waiting on the day he wanted it. That kind of stupidity should serve as a warning and we should know what it looks like.
I was in 8th grade when that came out. My Catholic school was a buzz for awhile.
I sorta like it. It’s the melody. Lol.
..... Yes, coronavirus is serious, and all reasonable precautions should be taken.
**********
Serious compared to what? The common cold? Ebola? There has to be some comparison with risks that people can understand.
“I half wish I was religious so I could see some meaning in what is happening and what is surely coming.”
Your potential “better half” I suspect is waiting and is whispering to you if you already are sensing such an abyss.
“Heaven and Earth shall pass away but MY WORDS shall not pass away..”
“Behold I stand at the door and knock, and he that hears my voice and will open the door, then I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me.”
I suspect that “half wish” you mention is the calling of God into your life...it’s never too late if you are sensing such a yearning and loving being directed at you...
Perhaps you feel jaded, spent, it’s too late for someone like you...well Moses was just getting started at age 80 and in his conversation with God, the fact that Moses had murdered someone was alluded to...”Go, those who sought your life are now no more!”
This is a day that anything can happen...you just never know what God thru his son Jesus just might do inside of you...and then what blessings will flow out from you via the Spirit! At the very least, though your outer man perishes, your inner man will be renewed day by day and that is something...
I don’t know your life...but I wish you well Freeper friend!
I wonder how many women have ever turned down marriage prepositions by guys with the last name of Beaver. That’s a major curse like a guy with the last name Glasscock or a woman with the last name Titsworth.
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