Lori Walsh: As the South Dakota economy grinds to a halt and people stay home to urgently prevent the spread of coronavirus, the food supply chain has been critical for keeping people sustained and free from further strain and even panic. How is the pandemic impacting the availability and price of beef products in the state? How is the pandemic impacting the cattle industry and the producers as they continue to feed the world? Todd Wilkinson is national policy chairman for National Cattleman's Beef Association. He's former president of the South Dakota Cattlemen's Association. He joins us here on the phone. Todd, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Todd Wilkinson: Well, Lori thanks for having me on.
Lori Walsh: All right, we've got a lot to talk about. Tell us a little bit about the initial impact on the industry. First of all, what's happening in the world of producers right now that's been disruptive?
Todd Wilkinson: Well farmers and ranchers don't get to take a day off regardless of COVID-19 or any of its impacts because they're still in the midst of calving and feeding the cattle. And as you mentioned, supplying the world and the United States in particular with a safe and nutritious source of meat. And because of that, I had a producer talk to me the other day, he said, "I really been so focused on calving that I haven't looked around as to what's going on," but that's just a bit of a stretch.
All of us know what's going on and all of us are experiencing this pandemic, but the cattle producers and the feeders in particular have been really economically damaged by this. That the virus kind of came out of nowhere and our system is such that, you raise the cattle, you feed the cattle, and then you sell the cattle and then it goes into the retail sector. But unfortunately for producers, the price that they've received has really been severely impacted over the last 45 days. And for a lot of these producers that may be a one time check a year and if they happen to market at this time it's just been economically devastating to them.
Lori Walsh: Explain to us why that happens because the demand didn't necessarily go down. We were looking at panic buying in a lot of places during that last 45 days and the prices didn't go down, is what I'm hearing from customers at the meat counter. What was the cause of such hardship for the producers?
Todd Wilkinson: Well, and I'm going to tell you your customers at the meat counter are absolutely right. They in fact saw their prices go up, which is a little disheartening for that cow calf operator because they saw their prices go down. First of all, we have the live cattle and the feeder cattle market, which is traded on daily on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. And much of our pricing is fixed in some manner off of the CME and unfortunately when the stock market crashed, the commodity markets crashed as well. And live cattle futures tend to be very attuned to the stock market and much more so than corn or beans and when the stock market took the major plunge, we watched the live cattle futures market plunge at the same time.
Lori Walsh: Yeah, thank you for that. The stimulus package is, did Congress hear the pleas of South Dakota cattleman across the nation of course, but is there relief coming for us?
Todd Wilkinson: Well, the proof's in the pudding of course, but I will tell you that a specific segment of the COVID legislation that was passed, specifically is to go to the beef industry. Now it's going to be largely up to the USDA as to how that is defined. We're probably going to see something similar to a market facilitation payment that went out to corn and beans and hogs and dairy last year. Beef was never a part of that payment last year and we didn't really ask to be a part of it. Beef got into this juncture because of events completely out of our control. And beef producers and ranchers in particular are a independent lot and they don't really ask for anything from the government other than to just stay out of our way.
But when you have things come in that drive the market down so hard that are beyond our control, then there needs to be some relief. And what we're understanding is that payment is going to go to all facets of the beef industry. But one thing we're making very clear is that the packer segment has made money throughout this and the producers do not want the packer segment to receive any of these proceeds because it's the cow calf, the stocker and the feeder operations that have been so dramatically impacted.
Lori Walsh: Talk to me a little bit about, and I mentioned it in the introduction, this importance of the supply chain. And President Trump has addressed this in his press conferences and has reassured people in America that that food supply chain is strong and is still functional. We talked with grocery leaders who said the same thing, but this involves a lot of things. This involves truckers, this involves regulators, this involves a wide variety of inspectors. Tell us about that supply chain and what's being done to address this unprecedented time to make sure that those things end up in the meat counter on a daily or weekly basis.
Todd Wilkinson: Well, the most impressive part of it is the fact that the president and Congress have correctly designated the beef supply chain is critical infrastructure. And we have seen the regulations relaxed on trucking so that truckers can get the product and the cattle to and from their destinations. We've also seen the president commit that the inspectors both on the national level and also the EPA inspectors all are working to provide some relief to the industry during this tough time. And I can't say enough how pleased we are as cattle producers to have seen the national government recognize that beef production is so vital. You look at the grocery store shelves and they're bare where the beef used to be. That's great for us in terms of our product. But we want to see those shelves full and we want to see the consumer able to reach their beef right at the grocery store counter.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. Are we looking at a shortage of labor because of closed borders or because of people not traveling? How does labor fit into this whole process here in South Dakota?
Todd Wilkinson: We also got some news on the visa program, and I'm going to quote it incorrectly as to the proper title for the foreign worker visa, but we got relief so that those people are going to be able to come back in and get here. That labor is always an issue, but it appears that we're going to be able to get around that. One of our biggest concern is is if we would have the virus get into a packing plant where they would be dramatically impacted by their workforce and if we saw plants shut down, that would be devastating to the market.
Now, we've been in directly in touch with the packers and they've implemented all sorts of security measures and biosecurity measures to try and limit cross contamination of their workforce into different areas, in rotation of schedules. Like many other areas and many other employers, we're seeing farmers and ranchers all the way through to the packing plant and the retailer, make adaptations to their daily work schedule in order to assure the public that we're still going to get that beef to its proper source.
Lori Walsh: You mentioned calving season and just the how some people say, I look, there are so many people, what I'm trying to say, Todd, is that are out of work or that have time on their hands because they're not allowed to go anywhere, who are processing extra time. For farmers and ranchers that's not the case. It's spring, it's calving season, it's lambing season. They're making all these plans but then they're also having to adjust how they do their job, how they keep their families safe. Certainly many of them have underlying conditions or family members with underlying conditions. It can be an incredibly stressful time and then you throw in that market fluctuation. What kind of support is there for farmers and ranchers to sort of figure out how to navigate this? Not only from a physical safety standpoint, like how do you do your job when you can't keep six feet apart, for example? To how do you maintain your sort of mental resiliency in yet another really difficult a challenge? Possibly one you hadn't thought about before.
Todd Wilkinson: Yeah. The six feet apart doesn't work very well when you got two people pulling that calf or needing to give vaccinations or the whole process that a farmer and rancher goes through on their daily lives. The one thing about living in our area as we kind of socially distance at this time of the year anyway, just by the nature of our jobs and that's a benefit of living in rural South Dakota. It is extremely difficult when you take that into the, even the livestock markets. I've talked to a couple of livestock market owners that are trying to limit the number of people that can come in their barn just so that their buyers or that there isn't exposure to other issues. But it's an incredibly stressful time on the ag producer right now. You've couple the virus with the fact that we were in commodity prices that are very depressed. Corn and beans and all the other commodity prices being impacted the way they are.
And then you throw this and social isolation on top of it. I just encourage those farmers and ranchers if they're in a stressful environment and they need someone to talk to, there's all sorts of resources out there that are people that are willing to help and willing to work through situations with them. I've had a number of producers talking about their loans are up for renewal at this time. They don't know whether that's going to get renewed by the bank because of the economic turmoil. Your whole livelihood is out there on line when you're that producer and just bear in mind there's a lot of us in the same boat, pulling the same direction and we're all in it together and we're all trying to work for a better end.
Lori Walsh: Are you concerned about, we talk about keeping our doctors safe and healthy, our healthcare workers, our groceries, store clerks. Are you concerned about the healthcare infrastructure in some of these rural areas that if farmers do get sick, is there going to be enough? Are there going to be enough resources to care for them as well? That seems like a a significant concern to me. Is that a concern to you?
Todd Wilkinson: Well, it has to be a concern when you live in rural America. I do think that the steps that have been taken by our healthcare industries and in South Dakota in particular, my wife's down getting a platelet transfusion at Sanford Hospital today and that's not the place I wanted her to have to go. But I'm comfortable that those measures are being taken, that she can enter that facility and get out of that facility and limit the exposure. I come from a town with, we have an 18 bed hospital and we're thankful that we have that hospital, but those rural hospitals are not that prevalent and they're certainly not equipped to take care of people on ventilators. But it appears from our vantage point that South Dakota is kind of been ahead of the curve in terms of trying to deal with this and prepare for the worst. And let's hope that the worst never happens.
Lori Walsh: Well, Todd, we need you and your family and other ranchers and farmers and producers to be safe. Very valuable part of a what's happening to keep the rest of us in the cities sustained as well. Thank you for that sacrifice and service and be well. Thanks for joining us today.
Todd Wilkinson: Thank you.