Senators Team Up To Investigate Mega Meatpackers

July 8th, 2020

By Local Root Strategies Team

Senator Warren and Senator Booker have teamed up yet again to fight for a fairer food system. They recently announced that they opened an investigation into the meatpacking industry’s manipulation of the COVID-19 crisis. The senators began by sending a letter to chief executives of Smithfield, Tyson, Cargill, and JBS publicly calling them out for exporting record amounts of meat to China, while simultaneously claiming that the U.S. was on the brink of a meat shortage and pressuring the Trump administration to keep their plants open.

As a direct result of their lobbying, Trump signed an executive order that would allow the meatpacking plants to continue operating, despite thousands of workers testing positive for COVID-19 and dozens dying as a result. Local Root Strategies Principal, Jake Davis, was recently quoted by Senator Warren responding to the ways big agribusiness has taken advantage of the COVID-19 crisis:

"Corporate meatpackers have created a broken system that leaves farmers, workers, and consumers worse off. During the COVID-19 pandemic we have seen these multinational agribusinesses sacrifice worker safety, manipulate government, and export food right out from under American consumers. We need more leaders like Senator Warren holding these companies accountable for this unacceptable behavior." -- Jake Davis, Farmer and Family Farm Advocate

With Senators Warren and Booker turning the national spotlight on these companies, and the DOJ investigating them, it’s high time for them to answer for the damage they have done to farmers, the food system, and the American people.