An economist says a court decision taking away a pork processor’s ability to establish maximum line processing speeds will hurt small pork producers.
Dr. Dermot Hayes from Iowa State tells Brownfield slowing down the line speeds will lose 2.5% of harvest capacity, force plants to use more mandatory overtime, and reduce competition. Hayes tells Brownfield that lost 2.5% will hurt the smaller pork producers the most. “The issue that I’m concerned about is that this fall, we were going to be pretty close to capacity and this may push us overcapacity.
