COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)
The only one I really know for sure is hogs. The United States exports well over 1/4 of its hog population to China. It’s a luxury expense there, not like here. Once this blew up in China, imports of pork sank like a stone. Because of that, and the closure of the restaurant industry as a whole (massive waste and generally larger portion sizes ) there is a surplus of a lot of things.
This isn't quite accurate. Pork is not a luxury in China...it is their largest protein source and China is by far and away the largest producer and consumer of pork by a large margin. The US exported 665 thousand metric tons to China/Hong Kong last year while we produced 15,000,000 metric tons. That means we exported 4.4% of our pork to China, not well over 1/4 as you stated.
2019's exports to China increased 89% from 2018 due to another completely unrelated viral problem. A disease called African Swine Fever decimated the Chinese herd and because pork is a staple in China (not a luxury), China held their nose and increased the amount of imported pork from the US. That means before 2019, US exports to China accounted for 2.3% of the US national production.
FInally, the total percent of US pork exported worldwide is about 26% and Mexico is our biggest customer at over 700,000 metric tons.
I am in daily contact with my former employer, Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer and processor in the world as we import a lot of their pork here in Australia. The situation is dire and beyond anyone's worst imaginations. Because of the closure of numerous processing plants and others at reduced capacity, the pigs are backing up on farms. Imagine 12,000,000 pigs processed per month and packer capacity reduced by 40%. This means that 1.1 million pigs cannot be processed each and every week that this continues. As shown in a previous post, there is no way to stop the flow of pigs through the 43 week pipeline except to euthanise piglets or induce abortions in pregnant sows. Both of these options are now being implemented on a large scale across North America. As John Tyson stated earlier in the week, the meat supply chain is at a breaking point.
Final point...the large meat producers in the US have no one to blame but themselves. They completely mishandled their work forces in the plants. Many are migrants and in one Smithfield plant in South Dakota, over 90 languages are spoken so COVID mitigation strategies could not be communicated effectively. In addition, they were paying bonuses to staff to not call in sick. This was a recipe for disaster. Now compare that to what we did here in Australia...as soon as the crisis started, we instituted thermal cameras at our processing plants and screened all employees. Staff were told to stay home if they felt ill or had even a slight fever. Staggered shifts were implemented and strict social distancing rules put in place in break rooms and work areas where possible. All areas frequented by staff are cleaned and disinfected four times per shift. We have had no reduction of the operational capacity of any of our plants. Now our only problem is that we don't have enough imported US meat to meet our customer demands!