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By Amy Huo, Open Markets Agriculture Policy Intern

Internal meatpacking industry documents obtained by Congress provide new insights into meat corporations’ close relationship with the Trump administration and their misleading campaign to induce fears about meat shortages at the start of the pandemic. A recent report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reveals how America’s biggest meatpacking corporations used an exaggerated risk of food shortages to draft an executive order, eventually signed by President Trump, directing meat packing plants to stay open regardless of devastating coronavirus outbreaks spreading from their facilities. A study published in November 2020 estimated that between 4,300 to 5,200 deaths resulted, in part, from President Trump’s order instructing meatpackers to stay open. These deaths include more than 400 workers in the packing plants.

The subcommittee’s investigation exposes one instance of direct collusion between Big Meat and the government agencies tasked with regulating their operations. “It’s disturbing just how much corporate influence there is [over government], particularly in this meatpacking space,” says Food & Water Watch staff attorney Emily Miller.

Coronavirus spread quickly throughout meatpacking plants early in the pandemic, in part due to fast line speeds and conditions that crowd workers together, according to a separate report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Initially, some plants decided to temporarily shut down to avoid further outbreaks and to accommodate labor shortages as ill or scared workers stayed home. In other cases, such as the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, local governments ordered plants to close to slow disease spread among workers and surrounding communities.

The closures created significant supply chain disruptions, in part because the consolidation of meatpacking has concentrated production in fewer, larger plants. They also frightened meatpacking corporations, who anticipated losing profits if production slowed. In response, the subcommittee’s report details how the meatpackers peddled a “flimsy if not outright false” narrative about meat scarcity and its threats to national security to challenge plant closures. For instance, Smithfield took out full-page advertisements in the Washington Post and New York Times, claiming they “must produce food” to “keep your family fed.” “[It] was very much a thought-out and intentional statement… at that point of massive uncertainty and panic,” says Miller, who worked on a lawsuit brought by Food & Water Watch alleging Smithfield misled consumers about an impending meat shortage.

Internal emails from the North American Meat Institute, obtained by Congress, acknowledge that the warnings were overstated. “Basically the meat shortage story is that there is no shortage,” reads an email between NAMI representatives. A report from the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy supports this claim, stating that even with depleted rates of production, pork processors could feasibly stock grocery store shelves for 14 to 18 months even if the entire meat processing system shut down, due to the large supply of frozen pork in cold storage. Packers also could have reduced exports if necessary. Food & Water Watch’s suit notes that the same month Smithfield warned of shortages they sold record meat exports.

Despite false flags of a shortage, meatpackers still successfully induced President Trump to sign an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to keep plants operating at capacity. The subcommittee’s report reveals that Tyson managers drafted the original executive order, while NAMI circulated a letter to Smithfield, JBS, Cargill, National Beef, Hormel, Seaboard, and Clemens asking them to join a request for the White House to issue it. Within a week, the president had signed an executive order closely resembling Tyson’s draft.

The order did not entirely prevent local governments from issuing public health measures. But the subcommittee report says many meatpackers used the order to push back against regulations, and many proceeded for months without implementing key COVID prevention measures, such as social distancing. In the end, an estimated 86,000 meatpacking workers tested positive for COVID-19 between April 2020 and October 2021, and 423 died.

Big Meat’s ability to lobby the government for special treatment is nothing new. USDA has maintained a revolving door between its regulatory agencies and private agribusiness for years. For example, the former head of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service became the global head of food safety and quality for the world's largest meatpacker, JBS SA. While he was chief of FSIS, the U.S. was the last country to ban Brazilian beef exports 90 days after JBS SA was caught exporting rotten meat worldwide.

Miller explains that hyper consolidation allows corporations to wield more power over suppliers, producers, consumers, and the government alike.  The top four corporations process 80% of the beef, 64% of the pork, and 54% of the chicken in the U.S. “Absent that significant market power these companies hold,” Miller says, “they would not be able to have that type of influence on our national pandemic response or our global health crisis like they did.”