MeatandPoultryProcessingCapacityTechnicalAssistance

Meet Us at the HOMEGROWN Village This Saturday

Q. What do Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews, Margo Price, and Flower Hill Institute have in common?

A. They will all be participating in the 41st annual Farm Aid Festival in Virginia Beach, VA, this Saturday, September 26.

Willie, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young launched Farm Aid in 1985 with a concert in Champaign, Illinois, to raise funds to support family farms going bankrupt in droves at the height of what is still known as the “Farm Crisis”. They hoped it would be a one-time event. The need in Rural America persisted, so Farm Aid persevered.

Smaller Processors Help Buffer the Impact of Large Packers Fleeing Town

Large packing plants seem to be falling like dominoes across rural America. 

In recent months, Tyson Foods has closed a plant in Nebraska, reduced a Texas facility to one shift, announced the closure of another plant in Illinois and the elimination of case-ready operations in Utah, and put a Washington state plant up for sale. Meanwhile, JBS is eliminating slaughter operations at a facility it owns in Pennsylvania.

Cattle ranchers and feeders supplying those plants now must figure out where they can feasibly ship their animals for harvest.