HOG MILD?

Calhoun County braces for impact from COVID-19, meatpacking bottleneck

Editor’s Note: The following feature story is part one of a two-part series detailing how COVID-19 has affected livestock farmers within Calhoun County, as well as the importance of these producers to the overall economy of the area.

Trent Blair enjoys the farmer lifestyle, just as much as he enjoys playing golf on Tuesday evenings from the spring until the autumn months. On a clear and near-perfect day, the Calhoun County resident had been repairing his skid loader in a small shop on his mother’s farm, located just north of Lake City.

Blair is one to work with his hands, starting his time on the family farm in 1995. Every day, he and his two sons tend to his crops, cattle and more than 10,000 hogs, compared to the 1,200 head that Trent had started with.  

“We enjoy doing what we do, everyday,” Trent said. “Even now, we still get up and go do chores.”

For the past few years, he had been getting by and held out hope for a turnaround in 2020. Blair’s optimism took a hit when COVID-19 came to American shores and ripped through the state of Iowa.

While Iowa never enacted a stay-at-home or a shelter-in-place order, many facets of the economy had been drastically reduced or closed down, due to COVID-19’s community spread in March.

One of COVID-19’s many effects on Iowa has been the bottleneck in the supply chain between farmers, trucking companies and meat processing plants. This breakup in the chain has Trent deeply concerned.

“All of my income right now is zero,” Blair said of the current situation. “I’m probably behind eight loads of fats, but other guys are in worse shape than I am. I haven’t sold a weaner pig for eight weeks, and that usually generates enough money for me to pay my bills.”

Trent has been struggling, but he has been thankful for the Paycheck Protection Program, initiated by the Small Business Administration as a loan for small businesses to keep workers on payroll.

“It’s a good thing that we have that,” Blair said of the PPP. “Otherwise, I’d be doing all of the chores by myself.”

Smaller farms and businesses who employ less than 500 people are eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program, alongside veteran organizations and nonprofits. The program, created from the recent CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act, is a forgivable loan to cover up to eight weeks of payroll costs, mortgages, rent and utilities.

Even with this help, Trent feels that it may not be enough if the bottleneck drags on.

“These packers need to be back up and running,” Blair said. “It’s a virus. Most of us are going to live. When we have viruses in my hog house, we put them all in the same playing field. We vaccinate them all with the same virus, and boom, it’s done. It sucks for a week, but after that, we’re back to normal. We, as people, may need to do the same thing.”

“You don’t give out a big dose, but a small one, just like a flu shot,” Trent continued. “You’re getting a slow, low dose that your body builds an immunity against. We’ve been treating sow herds like that for the past 20 years, and we’ve been biosecure for the past two decades.”

He also stressed that there’s no need to load up on meat at the local supermarket.

“Don’t go to the grocery store to buy 50 pounds of meat, when only five pounds will do,” Blair said.

Gestation for sows is 115 days, leading to the birth of a piglet. The piglet is with its mother for 21 days, before getting weaned away. It takes 170 days before the sow is moved to the packing plant.

“The rule of thumb is a year’s time,” Blair said. “But right now, there’s no place to go with them. There’s a system out there, and everybody has building spots. I can’t tell my sows down there that they can’t have pigs. You can’t tell them that they can’t eat.”

“We take care of our animals very well,” he added. “That’s how I make money. I make sure that they have comfort, food and water. An animal is just like a human being, when your time is up, your time is up.”

With only two seasons to make profit off of hogs, Trent feels that time is running out. Blair may not be alone in feeling the pinch.

Earlier this month, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation reported that pork production was down 44 percent, due to disruptions in meat processing plants caused by the COVID-19 situation. According to the release, the week ending on May 2 saw the lowest weekly hog slaughter in the past decade.

Prior to the emergence of COVID-19, according to the IFBF, consumer demand and production of pork and beef were at all-time highs.

According to the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers, more than 1,700 jobs are directly or indirectly related to livestock farming in Calhoun County, which accounts for 28 percent of the workforce. One in four jobs are generated from pork and beef, and $126 million of wages are indeed agriculturally related.

Calhoun County is dominated by small farmers, as there are 813 farms with an average size of 432 acres. According to the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture, more than 650,000 hogs are sold, dwarfing the more than 19,300 cattle and calves sold.

“The livestock industry is huge for Calhoun County,” said Terry Seehusen, Regional Manager for the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation. “It’s the county’s lifeblood and drives its engine. The row crop is important, don’t get me wrong, but the livestock industry makes a big difference here.”

Seehusen oversees six county Farm Bureau Offices, including Calhoun, and leads groups of 16 volunteer board members before these directors implement various farm policies.

According to Seehusen, who has been the regional manager since 2000, every facet of community life is driven by the livestock industry. When packers are dealing with shutdowns, it is more than just the farmers who start hurting.

“This whole COVID-19 situation is proving to everybody that a dollar turns within the community five times,” Seehusen said. “It’s no more apparent than it is now. When you see everything shutdown, nobody is making money. When you shut things down, it’s a disaster.”

“That’s where I get upset with a particular county here in this state that thinks it’s all about insurance,” Seehusen added. “It’s agriculture that makes this state operate. People often forget that, and that’s a shame.”

Furthermore, livestock producers pay in to property taxes, which in turn go back into the schools, the roads and even utility services.

For Keaton Hildreth, Calhoun County REC’s CEO, it has been a subject that he has thought about since the initial outbreak of COVID-19.

“This is something that I think about on a regular basis, is how important these livestock and crop producers are to our local economy,” Hildreth said. “Here at the electric co-op, we’ve determined that approximately 30 percent of our yearly retail kilowatt hours are sold to hog buildings.”

Added with the usage of grain storage buildings, those kilowatt hours sales exceed 50 percent. The REC also noted the growth of hog farms, which has stabilized electric rates along all consumer classes, according to Hildreth.

“The more kilowatt sales we can sell, it helps stabilize rates,” Hildreth said. “Our fixed cost stay the same in those instances, but we have more sales to spread those costs over.”

Although the Calhoun County REC hasn’t seen the implications of the bottleneck, it could be a problem, should the ongoing situation persist.

“So far, we haven’t seen an impact, but if things continue, we could,” Hildreth said. “We’re obviously here to serve the member, as they own a piece of the cooperative. So, we do everything that we can to ensure that people don’t lose electricity, especially during the time like this.”

Hildreth also stated that the REC will “work with members, no matter what.”

“We’re going to do everything we can not to shut electricity off, especially to a member who relies on it for the health and well being of a livestock animal,” Hildreth said.

Regardless of implementing a “new normal” or social distancing measures, farmers such as Blair feel that things need to return to normal operations – and fast.

“If we don’t get back up and running, I don’t know if there will be a small pork guy left,” Blair said. “Then, you’ll have all of the big guys controlling it all. You will probably not have a choice in what your meat price is. Instead, they will tell you what it is. We all know big business is not good. Competition is good; we have to have a lot of small businesses out here. It keeps everybody honest.”

“If we don’t get back up and running, it’s going to be a disaster,” he continued. “It’s not only going to affect food, but it will also affect trucking and delivery. It’s a cycle. We all have to work together. Forget about shutting everything down, let’s open everything back up and let’s go.”