Meat Supply Chain

Sioux Falls residents vote this fall whether to approve a new meatpacking plant in the city. The regional livestock industry supports the plant saying its technology will address concerns about odor and pollution.

A regional producer-owned hog processor plans to build a $500 million slaughterhouse in Sioux Falls. However, a ballot measure allowing voters to decide if they want another meatpacking plant in city limits is expected to make its way onto the city’s November ballot.

Most livestock raised for meat consumption in South Dakota are not marketed direct to consumers. As recent as 2020 some 2.1 million-head of cattle and 7.8 million hogs are sold on contract or through an auction market to large processors.Although this is how most South Dakota livestock are marketed, a growing number of the farmers and ranchers who raise them, are cutting out the middleman.

On August 9, 2019, a fire in the Tyson beef packing plant in Holcomb, Kan., led to a major disruption in the American beef supply chain. That was followed, in 2020, by the pandemic, when packing house workers fell ill from COVID across the nation, disrupting things further. U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson has introduced the Cattle Contract Library Act.

After years of avoiding it, South Dakota is applying to a federal program that allows interstate shipments of state-inspected meat. The application is…

The Legislature’s Ag and Natural Resources Committee wants some pandemic relief aid directed to local meat processors.The committee heard from several…

South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson is both encouraged and disappointed by an investigative report on cattle prices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture…

In this week's podcast, we talk about the legality of the issues raised around policing and protests, how it's playing out in South Dakota, why addressing…

In The Moment … May 29, 2020 Show 827 Hour 1This is a preview of SDPB's weeklong, multi-platform project on the meat supply chain. Find us on: Apple,…