Thurston County’s Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) met yesterday, July 31, to receive updates about the Central and South Puget Sound Region Meat Production and Processing Infrastructure and Labor Study.
As a regionalization effort, Thurston County partnered with Pierce County and consultants from Maul Foster Alongi to conduct the study.
“This report has been in the making. But recognizing that this was a regional issue, Thurston County partnered with Pierce County to take a regional approach in assessing the meat processing and slaughter, labor force, and infrastructure,” Jennica Machado, Economic Development Manager at Thurston County, said.
The study’s problem statement indicated that, ”While labor shortages, inadequate infrastructure, and equipment needs have been challenges facing the meat industry nationwide, there are issues and solutions unique to the Puget Sound region.”
The team conducted the study by starting with Pierce County’s Producer & Landowner Survey in 2022, followed by a kickoff meeting in the same year, an engagement, policy research, and GIS analysis this 2023, before coming up with the findings and recommendations.
Project Planner Melissa Johnson elaborated on the barriers that came up after the engagement process with the producer, slaughterer, and processor populations.
Firstly, producer barriers included limited availability of services and the subsequent need for advanced scheduling, cost, available land, available equipment to haul animals in some areas, and experience & education gap.
“The limited number of slaughter and processing facilities in Pierce and Thurston counties was frequently named a top barrier for producers,” Johnson said. “The lack of slaughtering and processing facilities directly impacts producers’ abilities to manage their herd, their production capacity, and their opportunities to expand.”
Producers recommended to the county that they need assistance with the limited availability of services, such as new or upgraded slaughtering and processing facilities, helping facilities attain USDA status, scheduling issues, and the experience and education gap for new farmers.
Second, slaughterer barriers include waste management, facility/equipment challenges, varying capacity, fuel and travel times, and scheduling.
“We heard about waste management, so as water– that was a challenge for them. They also noted the facility and equipment challenges. They also noted varying capacities to manage their work. Fuel and travel times was a big one because they have to often go from farm to farm, and scheduling lines up right without as well,” Johnson said. “Because in traveling from farm to farm, if one farm cancels, then that can impact their ability to get to be as efficient as possible within a day, and they have long travel times.”
Slaughterers expressed their need for assistance in equipment to increase capacity (for more established businesses) and advertising to gain customers (for newer businesses).
Lastly, processor barriers included storage space & scheduling, waste management, labor challenges that include balancing a seasonal and skilled labor pool, cost, and expanding capacity.
“The processors noted that their barriers were a lack of adequate storage space that was identified as a top barrier for expanding capacity, specifically a lack of cooler and freezer space to store carcasses after slaughter. While waste management was not a challenge for all of the participants’ businesses, it was identified as a challenge for some, similar to the slaughters,” Johnson said.
Processors requested grants and loans, and funding to expand processing capacity, primarily with more cold storage space.
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DeaneTR
Lack of cold storage is a short-sided need for unsustainable agriculture that's in denial of its role in topsoil loss and climate change. In the US we're using 60% of the grain we produce on feeding meat/enslaved sentient life. Globally, all 8 billion of us feed 40% of the grain we produce on feeding meat/enslaved sentient life.
And yet again with Russia bombing grain export facilities today in Ukraine, the price of grain is yet to soar again...
Sooner, rather than later we need to eliminate meat from our diet and eat the grain ourselves. The sooner we end pledge to never again eat meat, the sooner the crisis in massive inflation of grain prices and green house gases will be addressed.
Thursday, August 3, 2023 Report this
Deskandchairs
Deane, please pass the cool-aid
Thursday, August 3, 2023 Report this
JJmama
Deane is wide awake.
In this space it would be impossible to do justice highlighting the endless serious issues America's (and the developed world's) meat-centered diet perpetrates on this nation, and this world. From inadequate education/enforcement of ranchers, farmers and federal/state/county agencies regarding grazing and CAFO practices, to methane contribution to a rapidly warming climate crisis (we'll need a lot of Kool-aid Deskandchairs, to hydrate us through this one!), to the heart disease and many chronic illnesses which too much protein and red meat intake contributes to a major health crisis among us....from the amount of fresh water and poorly distributed grain needed to keep an industry full of monster-size mercilessness and callous industry practices fed, to the lack of pollution control relative to water, land and air....from the high fossil energy needs the meat industry requires to the marketing-led blindness much of the population has of the role their excessive meat-eating habits have on their own health and the health of the planet---I can only hope (but highly doubt) that issues such as this are talked about at meetings such as the one described in the article...where business as usual is conducted as though there were no tomorrow.
Thursday, August 3, 2023 Report this