Agriculture industry facing labor and supply chain issues in the midst of COVID-19 outbreak

Glenn Brunkow of the Kansas Farm Bureau spoke to KMAN about how certain commodity markets are being affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

He says one problem that has affected commodity supply chains is labor issues at processing plants.

Brunkow says this ultimately affects how much of a product certain plants are able to process.

According to Brunkow, customers likely won’t see a drop-off in supply.

For the producers, another issue will be finding enough places to send their product since many of their larger buyers, such as universities and restaurants, have either halted or slowed operations.

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, dairy prices have fallen 26 to 36 percent over the past month while corn, soybean, cotton and hog futures have dropped anywhere from 8 to 31 percent.

The agriculture industry will see at least some relief in the form of the CARES Act that was recently passed by the federal government.

This bill has allocated $9.5 billion to help farmers and ranchers affected by COVID-19 and another $14 billion to the Commodity Credit Corporation.

For more information on how COVID-19 has affected the agriculture industry, visit fb.org.