Tyson Foods announced it is making strategic changes to its beef operations to position the company for long-term success, according to a press release from the company.
Tyson Foods will anchor its beef business around three strategically located beef facilities in the central United States: Dakota City, Nebraska; Holcomb, Kansas and Amarillo, Texas, to create a more competitive footprint amidst one of the most historic cattle shortages the country has ever experienced.
Recent USDA cattle inventory data, which included continued evidence of limited heifer retention, indicates these supply constraints are likely to persist, requiring strategic action.
The company will end operations at its Joslin, Illinois, beef facility and its Eagle Mountain, Utah, case-ready facility. Capacity from these locations will be moved to more strategically located facilities with ample capacity to grow.
Additionally, Tyson Foods is pursuing the sale of its Pasco, Washington, beef facility. With these changes, the company will ramp back up a second shift at its Amarillo facility as cattle become available. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller responded to Tyson Foods’ announcement, warning that the move demonstrates the mounting consequences of America’s shrinking cattle herd and prolonged disruptions to cattle trade with Mexico. While welcoming Tyson’s continued investment in its Amarillo facility, Miller said the federal government’s extended shutdown of cattle imports at the southern border has further strained feedlots, processors, producers, and rural communities at a time when the industry can least afford it.
“Tyson’s announcement should be a wakeup call for anyone who cares about the future of the American cattle industry,” said Miller. “We are living through one of the most severe cattle shortages in our nation’s history, and now we’re seeing the consequences ripple through the entire beef supply chain. Plants are closing, operations are consolidating, workers and communities are being affected, and cattle producers are facing enormous challenges.”
Miller said the USDA needs to acknowledge the role the prolonged shutdown of cattle trade at our southern border has played in making a bad situation worse.
“For more than a year, we cut off an important source of feeder cattle at exactly the moment America’s cattle inventory was already historically tight,” said Miller. “That decision squeezed feedlots, processors, and producers, and ultimately American consumers. Shutting down cattle trade with Mexico was never a substitute for an aggressive strategy to eradicate the New World screwworm. We have paid the economic price of a closed border, disrupted a cattle supply chain built over generations and screwworm still made it into the United States.”
Miller said the decision to finally begin slowly reopening the border to the cattle trade is welcome, but it is overdue, and the damage will not be undone overnight.
“Tyson’s restructuring is another reminder that decisions made in Washington have real consequences in cattle country.”