Nebraska cattlemen face hard times during COVID-19 pandemic

Nebraska cattle producers are finding themselves in a hard spot. Not because there’s any lack of demand but when they have to sell their cattle, their getting extremely low prices due to packing plant limitations.

“Some of the packing plants are closing down because of the pandemic. That’s effecting some of the workers and some of the packing plants are slowing down because they don’t have enough workers so it’s just taking longer to process that cattle,” Ken Herz, the Nebraska Cattlemens President said.

Herz said there is plenty of product to be sold on the producers end but packing plants can’t keep up.

“It’s just really frustrating to know that we have a product here that the consumer likes and really enjoys but we just cannot get it to the consumer fast enough with everything that’s going on,” Herz said.

He said it’s hard to see cattlemen selling their product for low prices but then seeing the consumer have to pay more due to high demand.

It’s putting a lot of Nebraska farmers in a financially tight situation.

The nations Cares Act allocated 9.5 billion dollars to help the cattle industry but Herz worries it won’t be enough to get some through.

With no one knowing how long this pandemic will last, it puts so many at risk to lose their livelihood.

“I’m really afraid that at the end of the year there will be a lot of producers that wont be in business anymore”