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We keep hearing about meat shortages that will be coming in the week’s and month’s to come, but why is it we are being told all this?
Is there really going to be a meat shortage or is this just more fear mongering from the media?
Let’s dive into some things.
What is a Meat shortage?
When we hear of a meat shortage (I know this is a pretty new term) we think that there isn’t going to be any meat at the store’s or that we will have to stand in line to be given a small chunk of meat to feed our big hungry families.
This isn’t necessarily the case.
A meat shortage is basically what happens when there isn’t enough meat packer’s and kill plant’s open to provide the same amount of meat that they normally produce.
Now the exact number’s vary from plant to plant, but they can pump out quite a bit of meat in a day.
If you have just one plant down, that isn’t too bad. That is because there are a ton of kill plant’s across the country and elsewhere.
But if you have multiple plant’s shutting down at once, that is a different story.
Why are farmers killing their animals?
We have been hearing in the new’s over the last few week’s that farmers have been having to kill their animals because there aren’t enough worker’s at the kill plant’s to process the animals.
Since a lot of meat packing plant’s and kill line’s have been effected due the to Covid-19 outbreak, this has really done a number to the amount of worker’s showing up for work.
Some kill plant’s have had to shut down for more than their normal daily/weekly cleaning schedule. There are a number that have shut down but reopened within a few day’s to a week or so.
They had to close down because the number of worker’s that caught the virus was pretty high.
When the worker’s don’t show up for work, that backs thing’s up.
Why don’t the farmers give away or sell the animals?
There are some that are able to sell some of their stock, but that is a big logistics challenge.
One thing I don’t think folk’s realize is that when it comes to industry farming for meat, it isn’t like your neighbor’s farm.
These are farms that need to keep a supply chain going. This mean’s that they need to have a continuous stock ready for the kill plant. To do so, they also need more and more baby chick’s, hog’s or calves.
So in order to keep this up, they need to be big enough to be able to hold all the animals needed from baby to kill weight.
It’s a lot of animals at just one farm!
Now in some cases, the grower’s are able to sell off some of their stock. Small butcher shops have been buying up some stock as well as other individuals. This does help to not waste so much meat.
But being able to transport all of the animals ready to ship out, requires a place to send them, like a kill plant, butcher shop, or down the road to a “Normal farm”.
So since a lot of the kill plant’s that they would normally send them to are down or going down, they have to find others willing to take the kill weight ready animals.
Once the butcher shops are full, its not like they’ll be able to keep buying them up since they will run out of space as well.
Now it comes down to the normal farms or the “Non-Industrialized Farms”. There are just so many within a certain distance that would be logistically possible to ship them too within the time needed.
You have to consider the fact that there are a lot of Factory farm’s that are going through the same thing at the same time.
Will we see limit’s or shortages at the store?
I have seen report’s where a few store’s will be limiting the amount of meat’s sold to an individual during each trip.
I have recently seen this myself. Our local Wal-Mart has been limiting the amount of same item’s purchased from an individual during a single trip for a while now. This isn’t just meat.
It started shortly after folk’s started buying up all the Toilet paper, paper towel’s and hand sanitizer.
They have limited the amount to only 2 pack’s of certain things. So do keep that in mind.
Thing’s have really changed a lot since this has all started!
Do I think there will be a meat shortage?
Yes, Yes I do. Do I think that it’s going to be as bad as they say it is? No, No I do not!
Let me explain.
Currently we are already seeing shortages of many different item’s at the store. This isn’t just food either.
We are already being limited in some area’s on the amount of item’s that we can purchase in a single trip.
There are a few reason’s for doing this. This is to “Control” the supply. This help’s to not create shortages or slow down the amount of stuff that they are out of.
Since this started, many driver’s have been running emergency supply load’s which mean’s that they have somewhat suspended the Hour’s of Service “In the name of public safety” to be able to get the supplies moved at a faster pace.
Now there have still been shortages even though they have limited the amount of stuff sold. This is in a big part, due to the fact that everyone is panic buying.
There were some many folk’s out there who haven’t even heard of prepping, or who have always thought we were nut job’s. So they never seen it plausible to become prepared.
This is a majority of the US as well as around the world.
Once folk’s slow down on the buying then thing’s will get somewhat better.
I have already seen some things have the limit’s raised so that is a good sign, but sometime’s they have to lower the limit’s again.
I think things will get better in time. But at what time is it too late?