Name: Farmers Find Ways To Save Millions Of Pigs From Being Euthanized
Brand: npr.org
SKU: npr-org-487
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Farmers Find Ways To Save Millions Of Pigs From Being Euthanized

preview

Many Feared Widespread Pig Slaughter During Coronavirus, But It Hasn't Happened : Coronavirus Updates When COVID-19 infections forced pork companies to close processing plants, some farmers predicted that it would force them to euthanize millions of hogs. The actual number has been much lower.A month ago, America's pork farmers were in crisis. About 40 percent of the country's pork plants because they had become hot spots of coronavirus . Pork producers who had been shipping, collectively, almost half a million hogs each day to those plants suddenly had no place to send of all their animals, and little space to house the equal number of new piglets that are born every day. Pork producers and industry analysts said that if factories didn't re-open quickly, they'd be forced to euthanize on their farms. But that worst case scenario seems to not be happening. According to estimates of pork producers and officials in the hardest-hit states of Minnesota and Iowa, hog farmers have been forced to kill and dispose of fewer than 200,000 animals so far."Farmers are pretty inventive people," says David Preisler, CEO of the . He says farmers made some quick adaptations--they converted older buildings into additional housing for hogs, fed the animals low-energy rations that kept them from gaining weight rapidly, and sent some of their animals to local butcher shops. Others hogs were shipped halfway across the country, from Minnesota to Pennsylvania or California, to processing plants that could handle them. acquired two 80-acre sites that could be used to compost truckloads of hogs. As of May 29, the sites had accepted 17,058 hog carcasses. They could handle many more. Perhaps 100,000 to 150,000 carcasses have been trucked to rendering plants, which convert them into basic materials like grease and protein powder.In Iowa, the state is offering financial help to farmers who need to euthanize hogs. Farmers applied for funding to dispose of about 25,000 animals but have not yet told the state how many of them actually were euthanized. In mid-May, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig Iowa Public Radio that farmers in his state had been forced to kill fewer than 5,000 market-ready hogs so far. Hog industry officials say they've heard of few cases of euthanized hogs in other major pork-producing states. At the moment, the crisis appears to be ebbing. Most pork plants have resumed production, but Preisler says "it's too early to tell" whether farmers will be forced to kill more of their pigs. The plants, he says, are running at about 82 percent of their normal capacity, "but if we stay there, that's not good enough" to handle the backlog of hogs on farms.Sponsor Message

Many Feared Widespread Pig Slaughter During Coronavirus, But It Hasn't Happened : Coronavirus Updates When COVID-19 infections forced pork companies to close processing plants, some farmers predicted that it would force them to euthanize millions of hogs. The actual number has been much lower.A month ago, America's pork farmers were in crisis. About 40 percent of the country's pork plants because they had become hot spots of coronavirus . Pork producers who had been shipping, collectively, almost half a million hogs each day to those plants suddenly had no place to send of all their...

public

Dan Charles

News. Arts & Life. Music & more. This is NPR. 🕵️ Securely send us news tips: http://securedrop.npr.org

npr.org

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

Farmers Find Ways To Save Millions Of Pigs From Being Euthanized

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS