In a somewhat confusing decision, a chicken processing company has decided to “depopulate” two million chickens across several farms in Delaware and Maryland due to a lack of employees at the company’s chicken processing plants.
CNN <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/25/us/chickens-depopulated-delmarva-plants-delaware-maryland/index.html">reported</a> that Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc. issued a press release saying it had come to the “difficult but necessary” decision to humanely kill the chickens put apparently not use them for food. The decision was made after “the study of other alternatives, including allowing another chicken company to transport and process the chickens and taking a partially processed product to rendering facilities to utilize for other animal feed.&#8221;
&#8220;If no action were taken, the birds would outgrow the capacity of the chicken house to hold them,&#8221; the company added, while insisting no processing plants would be closed and explaining that the farmers will still be compensated for the chickens.
Further, the company said the chickens would be depopulated “using approved, humane methods” accepted by the American Veterinary Medical Association as well as state and local guidelines, CNN reported.
The move is curious, since such depopulations are usually only done due to animal health concerns, the Maryland Department of Agriculture told CNN.
&#8220;MDA is only involved in depopulations when it is done in response to animal health concerns,&#8221; it said in a statement. &#8220;This particular case was a private decision made by an individual business.&#8221;
The birds must be depopulated because the company’s processing plants lack enough staff due to “additional community cases of COVID-19, additional testing, and people practicing the &#8216;stay home if you&#8217;re sick&#8217; social distancing guidance from public health officials.&#8221;
As Business Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millions-of-chickens-killed-food-supply-chain-brink-meat-shortage-2020-4">reported</a>, the millions of birds to be killed represents “a small percentage of the total birds processed by the plant each year,” yet “highlights a massive problem facing the food supply chain in the U.S.”
On Sunday, Tyson Foods warned the “food supply chain is breaking,” as processing plants are forced to close down across the country due to the coronavirus lockdown.
“In small communities around the country where we employ over 100,000 hard-working men and women, we’re being forced to shutter our doors,” John Tyson said in a full-page ad in The New York Times and Washington Post. “This means one thing — the food supply chain is vulnerable. As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain. As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed.”
In addition to meat supply issues, crop farmers have had to let their produce rot due to an inability to get the food to market. Farmers have been sending unsold crops to food banks to avoid rot as much as possible.
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On Wednesday, President Trump signed an order to help save California’s farmers, who have been squeezed dry by the state’s environmental policies denying them water. The memorandum directed California’s water supply toward farmers in the state&#8217;s Central Valley.
On Thursday night, the state of California sued the White House, with California Attorney General Xavier Becerra claiming Trump violated the law by ignoring the environmental impact of his order. He snapped, “As we face the unprecedented threat of a climate emergency, now is the time to strengthen our planet’s biodiversity, not destroy it. California won’t silently spectate as the Trump Administration adopts scientifically-challenged biological opinions that push species to extinction and harm our natural resources and waterways,” <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/484019-california-delivers-swift-suit-after-trump-orders-water-diversion">The Hill</a> reported.
The environmental impact that Becerra was referring to included the effect on the chinook salmon and the delta smelt. Concern about the delta smelt has blocked water from being diverted from the San Francisco Bay Delta to the Central Valley for roughly 30 years.
Trump had ordered the Department of the Interior to take a new look at biological assessments before he signed the order.
Trump signed the order in Bakersfield, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-rural-stakeholders-california-water-accessibility-bakersfield-ca/">where he said</a>:
<blockquote>I’m thrilled to be here today as we take historic action on behalf of our incredible farmers and ranchers, growers, and communities throughout the Central Valley and all across the great state of California.  What they’re doing to your state is a disgrace. After decades of failure and delays in ensuring critical water access for the people of this state, we are determined to finally get your problem solved.  The state is not doing anything to help, but hopefully they will eventually come along.
Now that they’re rationing water for people, they’re saying you’re going to get, very shortly — I heard the governor saying you get 50 gallons.  Fifty gallons sounds okay.  People tell me it’s like nothing.  By the time you do with your showers, and your hands, and your tissues, and everything, 50 gallons is very, very little.  Can you imagine a state being rationed, when you have millions and millions and millions of gallons being poured out into the Pacific Ocean that you could have?  And you’d have more water than knew what to do with.  It’s crazy.</blockquote>
Trump continued:
<blockquote>For too long, authorities have needlessly flushed millions and millions of gallons of fresh, beautiful clean water from up north, straight into the Pacific Ocean.  It’s nothing for the Pacific Ocean.  You know what it means?  Like nothing.  We’re talking about the Pacific. I think they think we’re helping the Pacific.  It’s like a drop.  It’s like a drop.  But it can help us to a level that nobody can believe.  On the basis of old science, obsolete studies, and overbearing regulations that had not been updated in many, many years, and sometimes for decades.
The resulting miscalculation and misallocation of water helped turn natural droughts into manmade catastrophes.  I mean, it’s really a catastrophe, when you think.  You have farmers that own land that are paying taxes on the land that aren’t allowed to farm your land.  They’re actually taking away your land, if you think about it.</blockquote>
Trump added, “A lot of people speak badly of your state.  I love your state.  I understand your state.  You have the potential like no place else, but you need the right government.  You need the right governor.”
Matt Fisher, a local citrus farmer who had been asked to speak, asserted to Trump, “Farming here in the state of California isn’t the easiest, and every day since you’ve been in office, you’ve done exactly what you promised.  You came to California and sought to understand our water issues.  You listened to the right people, put a plan in place, selected the right people, assigned a deadline, and got it done.  These biological opinions and the balance that they will bring to the water that falls on this state will bring certainty not only to my family and our employees, but several other families that farm here in the state of California.  They are based on sound science and will help the Bureau of Reclamation maximize water to not only family farms, but rural communities and the environment.
Fisher added, &#8220;Your leadership on updating these biological opinions will bring significant relief to my family and will save literally thousands upon thousands of acres of citrus from being left to die. So thank you again, sir, for keeping your word and following through to help us here in the San Joaquin Valley.”
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Millions Of Chickens Will Soon Be Killed Due To Lack Of Employees At Processing Plants

Trump Tries To Save California Farmers. California Goes To War With Him.

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