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The upheaval wrought on the U.S. beef industry by the global COVID-19 pandemic carried with it several lessons that might help improve resiliency should there be a reoccurrence. First, the futures market for fed cattle fell well before cash prices, which sent a signal to market cattle early, and those who did so benefited. Second, the decline in futures anticipated the closure of slaughter plants and provided an opportunity to purchase and store beef primals in anticipation of future scarcity. Third, the beef industry has ways of slowing or stopping the pipeline of animals destined for feed yards and can "store" these animals in background feeding facilities or on pasture or rangeland. Producers who waited to sell feeder cattle benefited from higher feeder cattle prices once the processing facilities reopened. Fourth, cow slaughter plants responded to the pandemic and subsequent scarcity of labor much better than large fed-cattle plants. Cow plants are not as sophisticated and complex as fed-cattle plants. This relative simplicity may help explain the superior performance of these plants during the crisis. Sixth, the academic work on the value of building smaller plants as a response against concentration provides mixed results-these plants require more labor per animal and can be even more susceptible to labor scarcity. Seventh, the observed increase in boxed beef prices, even as fed cattle prices fell, demonstrates the risk-mitigating impact of producer ownership of downstream activities in the value chain.
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Die prekären Arbeits- und Beschäftigungsbedingungen in der Fleischindustrie sind seit geraumer Zeit Gegenstand von Regulierungsversuchen. Eine dreifache Krise – der europäischen Integration, der Arbeitsbeziehungen und der Naturverhältnisse – zog in der Vergangenheit jedoch keine substanzielle Regulierung nach sich. Unser Artikel zeigt, dass die pandemiebedingte Ausweitung der Konsequenzen auf Betroffene außerhalb der Fleischindustrie (etwa Anrainer:innen von Schlachthöfen) die Relevanz und den Handlungsdruck erheblich erhöht hat. Auch die symbolische Relevanz des Themas stieg im Zuge der Corona-Krise, weil die Regulierungen im Zusammenhang mit der Pandemiebekämpfung der Bundesregierung insgesamt gedeutet wurden. Unsere These lautet, dass sich die bemerkenswerte Geschwindigkeit der Re-Regulierung nur auf Basis der vorgängigen, dreifachen Krisendynamik der Fleischproduktion erklären lässt. Die Analyse des Policy-Wandels hat ergeben, dass die Debatte um Arbeit und Beschäftigung in der Fleischindustrie bereits seit 2007 geführt wird. Zögerliche Regulierungsversuche sahen zwar bereits 2014 einen branchenweiten Mindestlohn vor, der jedoch großflächig unterwandert wurde. Ob die neuen Regulierungen der Bundesregierung dies nun verhindern können, indem sie Leiharbeit und Werkverträge schrittweise verboten, bleibt abzuwarten.Alternate :The precarious working and employment conditions in the meat industry have been the subject of regulatory attempts in the past. A triple crisis – of European integration, of labor relations and of social nature – was not followed by regulation in the past. Our article shows that the extension of the consequences to persons affected outside the meat industry (as neighbors of slaughterhouses) due to the pandemic has significantly increased the relevance and pressure for action. The symbolic relevance of the issue also increased in the wake of the Corona crisis because regulations were interpreted in the context of the federal governmentʼs overall pandemic response. Analysis of policy change reveals that the debate about meat industry regulation has been ongoing since 2007. While tentative attempts at regulation included an industry-wide minimum wage as early as 2014, it was widely undermined. It remains tobe seen whether the federal governmentʼs new regulations can now prevent this by gradually banning temporary work and service contract work (Werkvertrag).
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Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) [1] has been deployed in tens of thousands of patients in Canada for preoperative intranasal bacterial suppression to reduce the prevalence rate of surgical site infections [2]. This treatment has proven safe and effective, with infection rate reductions of 40-80% in tertiary care systems despite only requiring 4 minutes of therapy [2]. We previously demonstrated that aPDT eliminates the RNA signature of wild-type SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, with reduction of RT-qPCR threshold counts (DELTACt = 22) in a light-dose dependent manner (C = 320 muM, lambda = 664 nm, F = 36 J/cm2) [3]. Photodynamic targets were found to include the receptor binding domain, spike protein and nucleocapsid domain, consistent with a broad spectrum peroxidative effect on anionic moieties throughout the virion [3]. This work describes the benefits of using regular aPDT treatments in the industrial workplace for the purpose of employee COVID-19 prevention. From July 2020 to August 2021, aPDT was deployed at a large Canadian food processing plant. Meat processing facilities face distinctive challenges in control of infectious diseases, including SARS-CoV-2. Factors that increase processing workers' risk for exposure to SARS-CoV-2 include close contact for 8-12 hour shifts, shared transportation, and congregate housing [4,5]. The presence of a slaughtering plant in a community is associated with a 51 to 75% increase in COVID-19 cases per thousand over the baseline community rate, and a 37 to 50% increase in death rate over the baseline community rate [5]. Methylene blue-mediated aPDT (SteriwaveTM Nasal Photodisinfection System, Ondine Biomedical Inc., Vancouver, BC) was added to the standard infection control bundle at the plant, along with employee education. Treatments were administered free of charge to approximately 1,500 employees on a voluntary basis during paid work hours. Compliance levels of employees requesting aPDT were 85%. To determine intervention efficacy, the rate of qPCR-positive COVID-19 tests over the treatment time period was compared to the same rate in the surrounding province. Results demonstrated a reduction of COVID-19 rate of over 3 times (p<.0001, Fisher's Exact Test) in the treated population compared to the untreated population, with the largest adverse event being mild (self-limiting) rhinorrhea in < 1% of cases. The plant continued production and distribution of products without disruption. Important outcomes from this quality improvement initiative included (a) aPDT proved to be a rapid, lightweight intervention that could be deployed at high compliance levels in a commercial high-throughput food processing operation, (b) significant impact (>3X reduction) on the COVID-19 rates was observed and (c) COVID-19-related comorbidities including acute and long-term illness, disability, and death were proportionately avoided.Copyright © 2023
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Objective: To examine the impact of the outbreak of novel Coronavirus disease (COVlD-19) upon public health-related knowledge. belief and practice among the public in China for providing references to public health decision-making.
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The impact of COVID-19 epidemic on China's pig. industry was analyzed from pig production. pork consumption and pig prices. The results showed that the epidemic led to the poor circulation of feed and livestock products. the increase of operating costs of breeding enterprises, the difficulty of starting work of feed enterprises and slaughtering enterprises etc., which significantly hindered the. recovery process of pig production capacity, and affect the realization of the goal of pig production capacity recovery throughout the year;the total consumption and outdoor consumption of pork decreased significantly, but the proportion of pork consumption added indirectly With the consumption of poultry meal and eggs increased, the price of pigs increased in general and the regional price gap widened. In the shun term. [he pig industry would face the problems of the situation that prevention of Africa swine fever was still severe and the support policies fall into the "difficulties of grass-roots implementation", and so on. Based on this. policy suggestions were put forward.
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The American Rescue Funds Program seeks improvements to infrastructure, capacity, and diversification in meat and poultry processing, with clear prioritization of increased competition via small- and medium-sized processing facilities. The need to euthanize animals at a time when retailers were rationing meat sales was one of several examples of market failures during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the disruptions to agricultural meat, poultry, and egg production at $15 billion based on CFAP and CFAP2 payments. Marani et al. (2021) estimate the probability of a repeat event at 1% to 2% per year, justifying the use of these public funds to add surplus capacity and infrastructure to mitigate disruptions in case of recurrence. Economics of scale are modest beyond slaughter of more than 125 head per hour in beef plants and 2,000 head per day in pork plants (Duewer and Nelson, 1991;Ollinger, MacDonald, and Madison, 2005). Dozens of such "medium-sized" U.S. pork and beef processing plants have survived since 2000, typically relying upon niche market connections. Given historic processing plant construction costs for medium-sized plants (Aherin, 333333 2021) and an assumed 20% USDA grant to incentivize construction, a $100 million expenditure on each of the beef and pork plants creates an opportunity to add as much as 5% additional capacity for each species, easing current capacity as the industries prepare for local and export growth. Whether producer-ownership of capacity can generate stability and additional benefits in the supply chains is of key interest. Models of producer ownership-including cooperatives and carefully structured LLCs-allow livestock producers to capture processing margins and remove some of the price uncertainty around live animal prices to the plant and producer. It follows, too, that producer-ownership can therefore reduce the ability of existing larger plants to poach supply from medium-sized plants during the crucial startup phase and ensure that plants run at optimum capacity. A significant portion of the additional capacity added to the pork industry in the last 15 years exhibited some form of producer ownership. Anecdotally, the pork and beef sectors may be moving away from commodity production and into systems that maintain animal identity from farm to consumer. Producers have an opportunity to capitalize on this shift by collectively investing in medium-sized plants with the ability to preserve identity and be more responsive to evolving consumer preferences. An overarching concern is of the need to maintain capacity into the future and the potential of existing packers to acquire this subsidized capacity should medium sized processing fail.
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Exotic pest and disease investigations are managed and reported by the Ministry for Primary Industries' (MPI's) Diagnostic and Surveillance Directorate. This article presents a summary of investigations of suspect exotic and emerging pests and diseases in New Zealand during the period from July to September 2021.
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The survey focussed on export trade of meat and meat products during COVID-19 lockdown which revealed export-oriented meat processing plants did not function during the lockdown period (April and May 2020) due to restricted working hours, unavailability of labours and food animals and birds for slaughter. About 90 % meat importing market was affected and this disrupted meat trade. The attitude of buyers was adversely affected towards the purchase of meat. This in turn decreased export of different types of meat especially beef, carabeef, mutton, chevon and chicken. Therefore, there was a change of nearly 20 to 40 % of overall export quantity and value of meat.
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Key words: meatpacking, plant shutdown, oligopoly, oligopsony (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) Introduction The unprecedented spike in beef price spreads (Figure 1) and drop in cattle slaughter (Figure 2), as beef-packing plants closed or slowed production because of COVID-19 (Dyal, 2020;Taylor, Boulos, and Almond, 2020) prompted calls for investigations into "inappropriate influence" during the pandemic by the highly concentrated packers in the beef market (National Cattlemen's Beef Association, 2020;R-Calf, 2020;Grassley, 2020). The extent to which packer concentration and market power are believed to have triggered or exacerbated the widening of the beef price spread during the pandemic is revealed in a series of letters from cattle producer groups to lawmakers and lawmakers to government agencies. On April 29, 2020, R-Calf (2020) wrote to President Trump and congressional leaders stating that packer concentration "stymies producers' market access and robust competition for cattle... [and] also transfers any marketing power America's cattle farmers and ranchers might possess to the highly concentrated beef packing industry." On July 22, 2020, 5 months into the pandemic, the USDA released the Boxed Beef & Fed Cattle Price Spread Investigation Report, which summarized, in addition to the market impacts of the Tyson fire on beef price spreads, the market impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2020a).
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According to physics principles, any action produces a reaction and generates consequences. Under this premise, it is essential to reflect on the actions we have in our relationships with other animals in current times. Our actions always bring implications, in many cases, affecting the welfare of animals, humans, or the planet. A unique virus, COVID-19, caused a pandemic, with more than 50 million cases in 188 countries as of November 2020. Evidence indicates its spread was a consequence of the human relationship with wild animals used for marketing and consumption, generating radical changes in social and economic dynamics, and significantly impacting animals. The lockdowns slowed down daily life, forced stop using vehicles, and reduce our excessive consumption of things. In just a few months, nature has shown that fauna can return to places where it had not been present for decades, the water cleared, the air cleaned, and a kind of natural balance returned. During the forced human quarantine, the outlook for production animals showed the fragility and low resilience of high-density industrialized systems. The excess of animals in contrast to the low number of processing plants (large in size, and therefore fragile when facing a problem like this) resulted in the emergency slaughter of millions of animals on farms. In the case of companion animals, they have suffered collateral damage due to conscious or involuntary relinquishment due to cities' surprise closures;additionally, humans' constant presence at home has generated multiple behavioral problems. For animals in zoos, the situation is also difficult, as visitors' absence reduced incomes;it has put many zoos around the world at risk of closure. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on animal, environmental, and human welfare is clear. Hence, the objective is to analyze the impact of the pandemic on global welfare.
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A national epidemiological research project was carried out to define the dynamics affecting the epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) infection in Turkey and to identify the risk factors. Official veterinarian (OV) and breeder original questionnaires were produced separately as part of this study to collect thorough data regarding the disease from the field. The number of questionnaires that needed to be filled out was decided by 95% confidence interval (CI) and 5% margin of error. The findings of 371 OV and 317 breeder questionnaires completed online across the country were analyzed. In addition, 28 outbreaks determined by random method were visited. To observe regional differences and field conditions, the opinions of OVs who monitored the disease and breeders were compiled. It was observed that the data obtained from both questionnaires was largely compatible. The main factors in the epidemiology of bTB infection were found to be effective fight, development of state policy, providing adequate financing, animal purchase, ear tagging and records, animal traders, animal markets, animal movements, conditional slaughtering, slaughterhouses, postmortem inspection, premise conditions, socio-economic impact, evaluation of raw milk, disease-free premises, compensation payments, and quarantine processes.
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Aim of this paper is to describe the management of an outbreak of COVID-19 in a slaughtering and meat processing plant in Bari Province (Southern Italy). At the end of the outbreak investigation, 18.4% of the employees were positive to the molecular test for SARS-CoV-2. Higher prevalence has been reported in the bovine slaughtering house and swine meat processing plant.In addition to lack of physical distancing and correct use of personal protective equipment, the spread of the virus has been eased by low level of literacy, indoor microclimate, intensive working time, and aerosol-generating procedures in specific areas of the processing plant where more positive cases have been detected. The analysis of this cluster may suggest specific actions to prevent similar outbreaks in the future.