 |
| image generated via ChatGPT |
Tyson Foods is to close or divest three facilities, as a historic cattle shortage lays waste to the US meatpacking industry. {Reuters 13 August}
This, alongside the Taylor Farms lettuce debacle and other food-safety concerns that have been in the news of late — compounded by natural disasters and a cattle shortage of the utmost severity — constitutes merely the visible tip of the iceberg (no pun intended) as to what is about to befall American agriculture and food production; all made worse under a regime hell-bent upon dismantling regulatory safeguards at any cost. Tyranny assumes many guises, among them increasingly unsafe food, water, and medicine.
I hate to keep saying it (but not really): what y’all voted for, #Murica.
FTA: Tyson on Aug. 3 warned that losses in its beef business would widen as tight cattle supplies keep livestock costs elevated. It forecast an adjusted operating loss of $500 million to $650 million in fiscal 2026 for its beef business, compared with a previous forecast for a $350 million to $500 million loss.
Cattle supplies shrank to a 75-year low after a prolonged drought burned up grazing lands in the western U.S. and Washington suspended imports from Mexico in an attempt to keep out the flesh-eating livestock pest New World screwworm.
However, screwworms were detected in June on Texas farms and in New Mexico after moving north through Central America.
Facing pressure to lower consumer costs, the Trump administration said it plans to start lifting the import ban this month. The average retail price of one pound of lean and extra lean ground beef hit a record $8.65 in June, according to federal data.
“We have paid the economic price of a closed border, disrupted a cattle supply chain built over generations and screwworm still made it into the United States,” said Texas’s Miller.
It may take up to a year for Tyson to benefit from removing the ban because imported feeder cattle must spend time grazing on grass or being fattened in feedlots to get ready for slaughter, Tyson Chief Operating Officer Wes Morris said on a conference call last week.
🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈
