A few days ago I posted an entry concerning the food desert caused by the centralization of groceries, particularly in rural areas. This occurs at Walmart, typically.
However, another centralization point, that could be a danger to Americans, has become apparent, and that is food processing plants. This is what clued me in:
Jayson Lusk, head of the agricultural economics department at Purdue [University], said because agriculture is seasonal, commodity grains and meats were produced months and months ago, but that the real vulnerability lies in the people.
“We have plenty of hogs, chickens and cows. But they all have to go through these packing plants that are big enough that if one closes down because workers get sick, it’s not a trivial amount.”
And imports, he said, could be a problem. The United States imports about half of its fruit, such as grapes and bananas, and about 20 percent of its vegetables at this time of year are from Mexico. [WaPo]
(My bold) Here in the upper Midwest we already have one example, as South Dakota’s Smithfield Foods‘ pork processing plant in Sioux Falls has been forced to close due to several workers coming down with COVID-19. From their press release:
Smithfield Foods, Inc. announced today that its Sioux Falls, SD facility will remain closed until further notice. The plant is one of the largest pork processing facilities in the U.S., representing four to five percent of U.S. pork production. It supplies nearly 130 million servings of food per week, or about 18 million servings per day, and employs 3,700 people. More than 550 independent family farmers supply the plant.
“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply. It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running. These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers. These farmers have nowhere to send their animals,” said Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and chief executive officer, for Smithfield.
It’s interesting that Smithfield Foods is implicitly admitting that its own centralization policy of building large processing plants, undertaken for no doubt sound financial reasons, may be imperiling the country’s food supply. I’m not blaming them or calling for the executives to be put up against the wall, because this is a failure of government.
And, while this foolishness is certainly part of the short-term blame:
As governors across the country fell into line in recent weeks, South Dakota’s top elected leader stood firm: There would be no statewide order to stay home.
Such edicts to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, Gov. Kristi L. Noem said disparagingly, reflected a “herd mentality.” It was up to individuals — not government — to decide whether “to exercise their right to work, to worship and to play. Or to even stay at home.”
And besides, the first-term Republican told reporters at a briefing this month, “South Dakota is not New York City.” [WaPo]
Governor Noem (R-SD) should simply resign due to gross incompetence.
But, as I said, this is short-term foolishness. Here’s the long-term view: The safety of the community is government’s responsibility, not the private sector’s. It is up to the government to identify dangers to the community and lay down laws and regulations to mitigate those risks. At the city level, an example is zoning ordinances; at the state level, environmental regulations and requirements of local resources; and at the Federal level, regulation to reduce the danger inherent in national threats, such as invasion, and natural threats that do not respect political borders, such as pandemics.
I repeat, I do not blame Smithfield Foods and the rest of the food industry for centralization. The supply of food, as impacted by natural disaster, is not properly the responsibility of any one food company.
It is the responsibility of the Federal government.
However, the propensity of the private sector to attempt to capture and/or evade regulation is an ongoing worry, and I do think that such companies need to put more emphasis on accepting that regulation is a good and necessary part of government – not an unnecessary and onerous burden which reduces profits, much to the horror of those greedy bastards, the shareholders. (As an investor myself, I feel perfectly justified in the characterization.)
While the Republican Party is generally considered to be a water-carrier[1] for the private sector, I think the Democrats also come in for some share of the blame.
But the past is the past; at this juncture, it’s time to reconsider opposition to regulation, and for the Federal government to consider how to reconfigure the food supply to better endure pandemics such as this one. I personally think that processing plants such as the one in South Dakota should be banned; a collection of smaller, geographically distributed processing plants will be more resilient to natural disasters, and employ marginally more people.
And if it costs more, tough shit. We’re the wealthiest nation in the world and we can deal with it.
So if your representatives at local, state, and/or Federal levels appear resistant to investigating regulations that will make us safer in the face of a natural disaster, advocate for their ouster. Make some noise.
And if you’re a conservative shaking your head at the thought of more regulation, it’s time to stop blindly believing that Regulation is Bad. Regulation is the imposition of rules in the absence of the market forces that would ordinarily impose rules. That’s really all they are.
1 For those younger readers unfamiliar with the obsolete term water-carrier, it means someone who represents an interest for which they are not formally registered, such as a Senator whose votes always reflect the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, rather than that of their constituents. It is a term of shame, as it involves a tinge of fraud and even betrayal.
