In recent earnings calls, shareholders of some publicly traded meat companies have asked whether the Trump administration’s deportation plans—among other issues—could pose a challenge to their industry. “We’ve been there before. It didn’t affect our business,” said Tim Klein, CEO of National Beef, which is owned by Brazilian food company Marfrig, in response to one. Questions from shareholders. In response to a similar question in A Tyson Foods Earnings Call“There’s a lot we don’t know at this point, but I’ll remind you that we’ve run this business successfully for 90 years, regardless of which party is in control,” said CEO Donnie King.
It is not clear whether the Trump administration will target meatpacking facilities operated by the industry’s largest firms, given the favorable treatment these companies received at times during Trump’s first presidency. During the Covid-19 pandemic, President Trump issued an executive order that allowed Plants to keep workingAlthough there were some of the meatpackers Most affected by infections. The US House Select Committee on the coronavirus crisis later found that Tyson’s legal department had drafted a text. Proposed order.
“These large meatpacking companies have resisted implementing additional safeguards to protect workers, in part to protect themselves from surveillance by Trump administration political officials, to force workers to live in dangerous conditions, and to protect themselves. By engaging in a concerted effort to save. responsibility for any resulting illness or death of the employee,” the committee concluded In the report Released in December 2022.
Cesar Escalante, a professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, says labor is in tight supply at meatpacking plants and the agriculture industry as a whole. The industry needs more workers, says Escalante, who argues that the U.S. should expand the H-2A seasonal agricultural worker visa program to include more livestock workers. Escalante says small farms are more likely to be affected by labor shortages, while larger farms may shift to mechanization.
If meatpacking workers are deported en masse, it could translate to higher prices for consumers. A report from Texas A&M AgriLife Research It is estimated that the elimination of migrant workers on US dairy farms will almost double retail milk prices. It’s not clear what impact Trump’s deportation plan will have on meat or food prices in general, as much about the plan is unknown. “We don’t know yet how it’s all going to pan out,” says Hubbard.
