Dermot Hayes, professor, was interviewed for an April 21 Des Moines Register story, "'Horrible choices': Iowa livestock producers may have to euthanize pigs as packing plants struggle."
"Producers face horrible choices," said Dermot Hayes, an Iowa State University agriculture economist.
In an April 22 KICD-FM interview,
"We need to have tests available, both to see who has the virus and also to see who has antibodies to get people into the plants who are relatively immune to the virus.
Europe has access to China, and we essentially have a 25% duty in addition to the normal duties. The product that would go to China would be carcass, not boxed pork and so it's a lot less labor intensive to send pork to China. What we need is a way to get rid of pork that doesn't require labor, so China is a huge opportunity. I think if we were to make a deal with China that for three months we were to take off our duties and they're going to take off theirs, then carcass pork would flood out of the country and that's exactly what we need.
It amazes me that we're still importing products from China that potentially carry that virus (ASF) and we're importing pork from Poland even though it exists there."
In an April 24 CNN interview, "Livestock industry warns that federal help for desperate farms wil fall short:"
Dermot Hayes, an economics professor at Iowa State University, said the Trump administration's direct payment plan leaves out so much of the pork industry because it is dominated by major producers.
"The top 40 sow farms produce and own two-thirds of the pigs in the US," Hayes said. "The smallest of the top 40 producers, they're going to lose about $18 million this year."
"$125,000 is just a drop in the bucket, and it makes no economic sense," he added. With so many processing plants offline, some pork producers are struggling to care for and house the growing number of pigs they can no longer get to market.
In an April 27 FarmProgress story, "ASF outbreak in U.S. could cost industry $50 billion over 10 years."
"Pork production in the U.S. exceeds domestic consumption by 25% to 30%, so it's important to have export markets open as they are imperative to the vitality of the American pig farmer," says Dermot Hayes, Iowa State University agricultural economist and one of the authors of the study.
"Ensuring a two-year scenario versus the all-years scenario means a $35 billion difference to the industry because we avoid downsizing," says Hayes.
In an April 28 Food & Environment Reporting Network story, "When meat plants shutter, what happens to market-ready animals?"
The majority of the tens of thousands of pigs that escaped slaughter over the last two weeks likely remain on farms, but some producers in hard-hit areas have begun culling. Dermot Hayes, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University, suspects the depopulation has been modest. But if plants continue to close, he adds, “this could be a real issue.” How would we know if the situation worsened, since pig farmers generally don’t discuss such matters? “We’d see a rebound in futures prices.”
In an April 29 Successful Farming story, "Impacts of COVID-19 on pig production and pork processing."
The COVID-19 pandemic will have short- and long-term impacts on the pork industry, both in production and processing. Iowa State University agricultural economist Dermot Hayes weighs in on the implications, starting with changes to the packing industry.
In an April 29 Iowa Farmer Today story, "Virus raises questions for China trade."
But some problems remain. It was always expected that to reach the dollar figures in the agreement China would need to buy more meat and finished food products that are of higher dollar values, Hayes says. But the United States has maintained a tariff on Chinese steel, which means China has maintained a tariff on U.S. pork.
“The administration still prefers steel over agriculture,” Hayes says. “It’s extremely frustrating.”
In an April 30 Time story, "COVID-19 Meat Shortages Could Last For Months. Here's What to Know Before Your Next Grocery Shopping Trip."
That workers could be eligible for the enhanced unemployment insurance passed amid the COVID-19 crisis could also factor into their thinking, says Dermot Hayes, pioneer chair in agribusiness at Iowa State University.
“Nobody knows how the workers are going to respond to a request to come back to work. Until somebody tries to reopen a plant and get that to happen, we really can’t say,” says Hayes. “There will be a tension between the owners of the plants who want to operate, and the workers who want to be on redundancy.”