Robyn Stewart
If you are active on social media, you may be seeing and hearing about how COVID-19 is impacting our agricultural industries. Stories of dairy products being dumped, pork processing plants being shut down, farmers leaving crops to rot in fields, and other situations are abundant. Dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic has brought unique challenges to all of our agricultural industries.
I first want to update you on what the agriculture forecast currently looks like- and unfortunately, we do not yet know the entirety of how COVID-19 is going to impact us. Predictions show that net farm income in 2020 may decline by over $20 billion. Quite simply, futures for almost all agricultural commodities are down. The key factors influencing this are: concern over the duration of this pandemic, unemployment rate, financial security of producers and consumers, and concern for fearful/uncertain consumer buying behavior even after we return to “normal” activity.
Something that has directly impacted the agriculture industry that I want to mention is the transition from eating at restaurants towards cooking at home. While it is no surprise that shelter-in-place mandates have caused people to reduce eating out, this transition poses a real problem for famers that are producing for the restaurant industry. For example, it is estimated that the dairy industry has dumped over 3.8 million gallons of milk per day as milk prices have dropped over 40%. The culprit? School and restaurant closures, which account for over a third of milk consumption in the U.S. One major egg producer reports destroying 175,000 eggs (or 5.5% of their production) every week. Fortunately for this producer, he is able to send some of this excess for rendering into pet food. Another industry impacted is pork producers- where over 2/3 of bacon is sold to restaurants. With the restaurant demand no longer present, producers are trying to funnel more products into grocery stores, but making up that amount of demand is near impossible. The industries noted above are not the only ones impacted- vegetable production (most people eat significantly fewer vegetables when they cook at home), beef production (an estimated $3.7 billion in losses for cow calf operations) and other commodities are also feeling the pressure. The overall estimated losses to our food industry on the restaurant side is over $678 million—and that doesn’t include restaurant closures, employment losses, and other things.
Another impact of COVID-19 is a decline in travel, which drives down the demand for ethanol. The production of ethanol, which is made from corn, has fallen, causing a decline in the price of corn (so less profit for corn producers), and a shortage of distillers dried grains—a byproduct of ethanol production used in livestock feed (causing an increase in feed cost). To put it simply, our stay-at-home practices have indirectly made corn less profitable for farmers, and have also made it more expensive to feed livestock. There are ongoing concerns about shortages and slowdowns as well. Our ability to transport agricultural products both within states and internationally may have significant implications for our food supply. A final thing to note is concern for the health of our farmers. The average age of farm operators is 58, and 26% of farmers are over the age of 65—and while these folks are not guaranteed to get sick (most farmers I know are pretty good at social distancing!) they may be at higher risk if they do succumb to the disease. As we face COVID-19, we must ensure that we take care of our very best resource- our farmers themselves.
As I listened to a beef update this week and heard all of these numbers and statistics, it was hard not to feel discouraged. I’d like to leave you with two thoughts that may lighten the load. First, our beef economist did say that if our farmers (specifically our cow-calf producers) can tough it out through the next 1-2 years and weather the storm, that we should see a significant improvement in market conditions in years 3 and 4. Second, Lincoln County Extension would like to encourage our community to use this experience to help grow our local food system. We have neighbors and friends that are selling produce, eggs, meat, and more, and this is a great opportunity to support them and thank them for all that they do. Therefore, we are going to be updating our website with a directory page of Lincoln County agricultural producers. If you are producing and selling a product (beef, pork, chicken, eggs, honey, fruits/vegetables, nuts, etc) please reach out to us at uge3181@uga.edu or 706-359-3233 if you’d like to be listed.
