Try higher slaughter rate of pigs in the United States

Nine pig slaughterhouses in the United States are allowed to increase their slaughter speed again on a trial basis. That has been decided by the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA.

In March this year, a US court overturned a law introduced under former President Donald Trump. This law made it possible to increase slaughter speeds by removing speed limits from the legislation. However, this policy was criticized by employee organizations: high speeds would have consequences for the safety of employees. The American court agreed in March this year, declaring Trump's policy illegal. As a result, the slaughter capacity has since been reduced again.

Trade union also accepts improved proposal
Increasing the slaughter speed in the current trial is no longer being opposed by the largest workers' union in the meat processing industry. She indicated that the position of the employees was also taken into account in the new pilot programme. Abattoirs will collect data about the impact of the acceleration of the process on employees and share it with the USDA.

Slaughterhouses are also responding positively because they say they can 'recover lost production' and because the measure helps to alleviate the difficulties that currently exist in the supply chain. Companies in the sector indicate that they have lost 2,5% of capacity due to the court decision in March this year.

The pig futures market reacted positively to the news because increasing the slaughter speed from the slaughterhouses could lead to an extra demand for pigs. Prices for the first expiring futures contract (December 2021) for pigs rose by $1,7 cents per kilo and are now trading at $1,67 per kilo of slaughter weight.

Steve Wissink

Stef Wissink is an editor at Boerenbusiness and writes about current market developments in the dairy and pig market. He also follows Dutch and international agribusiness.

s.wissink@boerenbusiness. Nl

© DCA Market Intelligence. This market information is subject to copyright. It is not permitted to reproduce, distribute, disseminate or make the content available to third parties for compensation, in any form, without the express written permission of DCA Market Intelligence.