The US meat supply crisis

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted several vulnerabilities in the US meat supply chain, leading to meat shortages and increased attention to the plight of slaughterhouse workers and factory farming practices. Although plant-based meat sales have surged during the lockdown, their market share has declined slightly due to a similar boom in conventional meat sales. The crisis has eroded factory farming’s political and economic power, alienating both left and right-wing politicians, exacerbating tensions between producers and packers, and revealing the true costs of cheap meat production. While these changes will not immediately end factory farming, they may contribute to long-term shifts in the industry and support the case for protein diversification. – AI-generated abstract