Tag Archives: American Farm Bureau Federation

Side effects: Fuel demand crash shuts U.S. ethanol plants, meatpackers lack refrigerant

By Stephanie Kelly and Tom Polansek

NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) – A slew of U.S. ethanol plants have shut down as fuel demand has collapsed during the coronavirus outbreak, and meatpackers have been hit by a worrying side-effect: less carbon dioxide is now available to chill beef, poultry and pork.

“We’re headed for a train wreck in terms of the CO2 market,” said Geoff Cooper, president of the Renewable Fuels Association industry group. The RFA said 29 of the 45 U.S. ethanol plants that sell carbon dioxide, or CO2, have idled or cut rates. The U.S. ethanol sector is the top supplier of commercial carbon dioxide to the food industry, accounting for around 40% of the market, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

That has put the U.S. meat industry on high-alert. It uses carbon dioxide as a refrigerant and preservative for meat, and also uses the gas to stun animals before slaughter.

The CO2 crunch is the latest supply chain disruption threatening the food industry as it struggles to keep workers on the job during the coronavirus outbreak while meeting rising demand at grocery stores.

Cargill Inc [CARG.UL], the world’s biggest supplier of ground beef, and chicken processor Perdue Farms said they are seeking to make sure they have enough supplies.

“We are working with our partners to ensure they understand that we offer an essential service to the world – providing the ingredients, feed and food that nourish people and animals – and maintain our supply,” Cargill spokesman Daniel Sullivan said. He added that the company is aware of “potential shortages or limited allocations” in certain areas.

Perdue Farms has enough CO2 “for now” and back-up plans if supplies run low, spokeswoman Andrea Staub said.

But if shortages of carbon dioxide worsen, meat companies may not be able to produce food at regular rates, said Rich Gottwald, president of the Compressed Gas Association.

“If they don’t have CO2, then it will slow their production of those food products,” he said.

The North American Meat Institute, an industry group that represents processors like Tyson Foods Inc <TSN.N> and WH Group Ltd’s <0288.HK> Smithfield Foods Inc [SFII.UL], said it was helping connect carbon dioxide suppliers with meat companies that anticipated possible problems obtaining CO2.

While supplies remain available, Veronica Nigh, a farm bureau economist, said some meat companies already were paying more for CO2.

“They’re certainly feeling the impact of limited supply and the price that ends up translating to,” she said on a conference call on Friday.

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York and Tom Polansek in Chicago. Additional reporting by PJ Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by David Gregorio)

Trump reassures farmers immigration crackdown not aimed at their workers

Migrant farmworkers with H-2A visas walk to take a break after harvesting romaine lettuce in King City, California, U.S

By Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said he would seek to keep his tough immigration enforcement policies from harming the U.S. farm industry and its largely immigrant workforce, according to farmers and officials who met with him.

At a roundtable on farm labor at the White House last month, Trump said he did not want to create labor problems for farmers and would look into improving a program that brings in temporary agricultural workers on legal visas.

“He assured us we would have plenty of access to workers,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of 14 participants at the April 25 meeting with Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

During the roundtable conversation about agriculture, farmers and representatives of the sector brought up labor and immigration, the details of which have not been previously reported. Some farmers told Trump they often cannot find Americans willing to do the difficult farm jobs, according to interviews with nine of the 14 participants.

They said they were worried about stricter immigration enforcement and described frustrations with the H-2A visa program, the one legal way to bring in temporary seasonal agricultural workers.

The White House declined to comment on the specifics of the discussion, but described the meeting as “very productive.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not respond to a request for comment on the April meeting.

About half of U.S. crop workers are in the country illegally and more than two-thirds are foreign born, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agriculture Workers’ Survey.

During the roundtable, Luke Brubaker, a dairy farmer from Pennsylvania, described how immigration agents had recently picked up half a dozen chicken catchers working for a poultry transportation company in his county.

The employer tried to replace them with local hires, but within three hours all but one had quit, Brubaker told the gathering at the White House.

Trump said he wanted to help and asked Secretary Perdue to look into the issues and come back with recommendations, according to the accounts.

While other issues such as trade, infrastructure and technology were also discussed, participants were more positive after the meeting about the conversation on foreign labor “than about anything else we talked about,”  said Bill Northey, a farmer and Iowa’s secretary of agriculture.

RED TAPE

Tom Demaline, president of Willoway Nurseries in Ohio, said he told the president about his struggles with the H-2A guestworker program, which he has used for 18 years.

He told Trump the program works in concept, but not in practice. “I brought up the bureaucracy and red tape,” he said. “If the guys show up a week or two late, it puts crops in jeopardy. You are on pins and needles all year to make sure you get the workers and do everything right.”

While use of the program has steadily increased over the past decade, it still accounts for only about 10 percent of the estimated 1.3 million farmworkers in the country, according to government data. In 2016, the government granted 134,000 H-2A visas

Employers who import workers with H-2A visas must provide free transportation to and from the United States as well as housing and food for workers once they arrive. Wage minimums are set by the government and are often higher than farmers are used to paying.

Steve Scaroni, whose company Fresh Harvest brings in thousands of foreign H-2A workers for growers in California’s Central valley, says, however, that he could find work for even more people if he had more places to house them.

Trump recently signed another executive order titled “Buy American, Hire American,” calling for changes to a program granting temporary visas for the tech industry, but not to visas used by farmers and other seasonal businesses, including Trump’s own resorts.

FARMER CONCERNS

Trump also signed two executive orders, just days after taking office, focused on border security that called for arresting more people in the United States illegally and speeding up deportations.

Roundtable participants said that many farmers have worried about the effect of the stepped up enforcement on their workforce, but Trump told them his administration was focused on deporting criminals, not farmworkers.

“He has a much better understanding about this than some of the rhetoric we have seen,” said meeting attendee Steve Troxler, North Carolina’s agriculture commissioner and a farmer himself.

The farmers at the meeting said they stressed to the president the need for both short-term and permanent workers. They said there should be a program to help long-time farmworkers without criminal records, but who are in the country illegally, to become legal residents.

Last Tuesday, Democrats in the House and Senate said they would introduce a bill to give farmworkers who have worked illegally in the country for two consecutive years a “blue card” to protect them from deportation.

Brubaker, the Pennsylvania farmer, said he liked what he had heard about the bill and hoped it would get the president’s support to make it a bipartisan effort.

“The administration has got something started here,” he said of the meeting with farm leaders. “It’s about time something happens.”

(Reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Mica Rosenberg in Washington; Additional reporting by Julia Love in Salinas, California; Editing by Sue Horton and Mary Milliken)