In recent earnings calls, shareholders of some publicly traded meat companies have asked whether the Trump administration’s deportation plans, among other issues, could pose a challenge to their industry. “We’ve been there before. It didn’t affect our business,” said Tim Klein, chief executive of National Beef, owned by Brazilian food company Marfrig, in response to a question. question from a shareholder. In response to a similar question in a Tyson Foods Earnings CallCEO Donnie King said: “There is a lot we don’t know at this time, but I would remind you that we have operated this business successfully for over 90 years, regardless of who is in control.”
It is unclear whether the Trump regime would target meatpacking facilities operated by the industry’s largest companies, given the favorable treatment these companies sometimes received during Trump’s first presidency. During the Covid-19 pandemic, President Trump issued an executive order that allowed plants to continue operatingeven when refrigerators were some of the those most affected by infections. The US House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis later found that Tyson’s legal department drafted text of the proposed order.
“These large meatpacking companies prevented additional protections from being put in place to protect workers, in part by engaging in a concerted effort with Trump administration political officials to insulate themselves from oversight, force workers into dangerous conditions, and protect yourself from supervision. liability for any resulting illness or death of the worker,” the committee concluded. in the report launched in December 2022.
Labor is in short supply in meatpacking plants and in the agricultural industry in general, says César Escalante, a professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. The industry needs more workers, says Escalante, who argues that the United States should expand the H-2A visa scheme for seasonal agricultural workers to include more livestock workers. Smaller farms are more likely to be affected by a lack of workers, Escalante says, while larger farms may shift to mechanization.
If meat workers are deported en masse, that could translate into higher prices for consumers. a report of Texas A&M Agrilife Research estimates that eliminating immigrant labor on American dairy farms would nearly double retail milk prices. It’s unclear what the impact of Trump’s deportation plan would be on meat or food prices in general, because much is still unknown about the plan. “We don’t know yet how this will all play out,” Hubbard says.