December 28, 2006

Swift and Company raids leading to collapse of Pork Industry?

Could the recent immigration raids at Swift and Company lead to a full-blown collapse of the Pig, Pork, and Swine Industry? Or, will those raids simply send the message that The Industry should deal with doing business within the law? I favor the second choice, but the Associated Press appears to be working itself into a future article that will warn about the first choice. For now, all we have is the relatively understated (in AP terms) "Immigration raid still hurting Swift production and hog prices":

More than two weeks after immigration raids resulted in the detention of 1,282 Swift & Co. workers, the company's pork plants still have not returned to full capacity and the slowdown has caused hog prices to drop.

...hog farmers who need to sell their animals have had fewer buyers, driving prices down. David Preisler, executive director of the Minnesota Pork Producers Association, estimates that the raids are costing pork producers $6 per pig.

I'm no Porcine Professional, but do Hog Farmers "need" to sell their crop within some certain time? Or, can they keep piggies around if they can't find a good price? And, of course, the article doesn't disclose current pig pricing nor the average weight of a pig and whether the cost is based on when the pig is still in possession of its various appendages and so forth.

[Swift spokesman Sean McHugh] said that because the raid happened early in the morning, we were able to get in touch with our producers, and a lot of the normal deliveries were either stopped, turned around en route or directed to other processors," he said. "There were no livestock at risk from an animal welfare perspective."

Brad Freking, owner and managing partner of Jackson-based New Fashion Pork, said the raid proves the need for a compromise on immigration reform.

"The impact of this is so widespread. We're being indirectly impacted - Main Street businesses and social services are all impacted," he said. There has to be a better method."

The better method he has in mind is to let the Pork Industry run our immigration system. I suggest they deal with the current situation and make do.

UPDATE: The Cattle Network (not the one on TV, the web one) weighs in with this:

A panel of pork industry analysts said that while Swift & Co. was hurt by the [immigration raids], the impact on the pork industry as a whole was extremely short-lived. "It took the industry less than a week to recover" and return to pre-raid production levels, said Ron Plain, professor of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri.

Posted to Immigration at December 28, 2006 04:02 PM

Comments

Maybe Swift & Co. should have thought of that before lowering wages and increasing profits by hiring illegal workers.

Now there will be those that say you can't enforce the law cause it would hurt a industry.

Posted by: Arthur Chartrand at December 28, 2006 08:13 PM

I doubt that the presence of illegals transfers income to the piggery itself.
Even if it did, those same illegals are carried on net public subsidy, which is a charge on the marginal dollar that the least-subsidized producer gets.
Those producers who can't stay in that field without net public subsidy are, for those to whom we owe loyalty, better closed down.

Posted by: John S Bolton at December 29, 2006 12:51 AM

Do you know that the illegal rat are making $12 to $16 dollars per hour, in a state that has no jobs, over 500 Americans lined up for the jobs.

Swift will move to mexico and pay the rats $3 per hour, the only loyalty the the rich white guys who run Swift is to money, and most would sell us to bin laden.

Posted by: Fred Dawes at December 29, 2006 12:59 AM

The pigs are rotting in the fields!

Posted by: Mary at December 30, 2006 10:11 PM