Coming in the midst of the Department of Justice’s investigation of potential antitrust violations, two Democratic senators have sent a letter to meatpackers, expressing concern about meat exports to China.
The letter dated June 22, 2020 by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) was sent to Tyson Foods, JBS USA, Cargill and Smithfield Foods, and questions sending “massive amounts” of beef, pork and chicken to China while “threatening the American public with an impending shortage.”
In addition to the meat exports, the letter states the meatpackers put workers “in harm’s way” to maintain production, and lobbied President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to allow them to continue operation.
The senators assert the actions resulted in questioning “your honesty with the American public about the reasons for higher food prices, and your commitment to providing a safe, affordable, and abundant food supply for the nation.”
The letter cited statements made by the meatpackers that the “country [was] perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply” and that “the food supply chain is breaking,” which prompted retailers to limit purchases and the beef index to experience “its largest-ever monthly increase of 10.8 percent in May.”
The letter cited an article from USA Today and stated 129,000 tons of pork were exported to China, resulting in the share of pork exported rising to 32 percent, from an average of 25-27 percent in the first four months of this year.
In total, 1.3 billion pounds of meat were exported, and “the amount of beef and pork products exported over that time period actually exceeded the amount of lost production” from COVID-19-related problems.
According to the New York Times, the companies stated the exported meat had been produced prior to the crisis and weeks before it was shipped to China. Pork producers have been anticipating a boom in exports as part of Phase One of the trade deal and China’s industry being decimated from Asian swine fever.
The letter asked the meatpacking companies to submit by June 30 answers to questions such as how many workers were exposed to the coronavirus, how many were hospitalized, and how many died as a result of the exposure.
The meatpackers have declined to disclose these figures unless required. According to a report by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union—which represents meatpacking workers, grocery store workers and healthcare workers—there have been 238 worker deaths from COVID-19, and nearly 29,000 workers infected over the last 100 days.
The letter also asks what measures are taken when a worker contracts COVID-19 and the dates when they implemented “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Occupational Safety and Health Administration best practices for meat and poultry processors to protect workers at each of your plants.”
Calling into question the assertion meatpackers produced the meat weeks earlier, the senators also want to know the amount of meat produced at the plants from March 1, 2020-May 31, 2020, and how much was exported to China during that period. In addition to exports to China, the senators want to know how much meat total was exported to other countries. They also want to know how it compared to the same period in 2019.
Finally, the letter asks the average increase in the wholesale price, the average price paid to domestic farmers and ranchers, and the source of meat slaughtered—specifically, was there an increase in livestock imported from overseas during the time period?
“It also raises questions about what, exactly, Smithfield meant when the company said that ‘[w]e have continued to run our facilities for one reason: to sustain our nation’s food supply during this pandemic,’ and about how seriously Tyson takes its ‘responsibility to feed our country,’” the letter said. — Charles Wallace, WLJ correspondent
