Michigan’s pork producers could soon be in a tight spot. The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota removed a provision of the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS) in March that gave pork processors the right to establish maximum line speeds, citing worker safety issues. That original rule was created in 2019, and it directly impacts the Clemens Food Group facility in Coldwater.
“It was built with the specifications that were approved back in 2019—it was one of the pilot plants when it was built,” said Mary Kelpinski, CEO of the Michigan Pork Producers Association. “It was built to accommodate a faster line speed. They eliminated the line speed limit, so you can process pigs as the plant is meant to—slow down as you have challenges or if everything’s working right, you can process at a good speed.”
The rule is set to take place the end of June. Kelpinski said it will impact the hogs currently in the 11-month cycle.
“With this court ruling, all the plants like Clemens would be required to slow down their processing speed so they wouldn’t be able to handle as many hogs on a daily or weekly basis,” she said. “Those hogs were born planning on going to that plant, so it’s going to be a challenge for those producers to find other places to take their pigs.”
Kelpinski said there could be a loss of packing capacity of 2.5 percent or more. It will have ripple effects—impacting the prices producers are paid, the choices consumers have at the meat counter and hours for workers.
“About 60 percent of the hogs that are raised in Michigan go to Coldwater to be processed—if they can’t take all those hogs, then there’s going to be a lot higher transportation cost for those pigs to travel farther to get processed,” she said. “If we can’t get as much processed, we’re going to have to lengthen the hours that the plants are working, we’re going to have to have more Saturday hours. There’s a lot of fatigue that adds up. Then workers get tired, and they are more prone to have accidents.”
Kelpinski and the National Pork Producers Council are requesting Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack to issue a stay for this rule for roughly one year. The ask is twofold: to get added research to prove line speed is not a safety issue and to give pork producers time to adjust their herds.
“The plants have been working on a pilot project for 20 years, and then it was adopted in 2019,” said Kelpinski. “We feel there’s a lot of history there that proves it’s safe. If the Secretary could either look at what we have done over the last 20 years and overturn this ruling, that would be wonderful, but if he could at least say, ‘Wait a second, let’s at least let the processing plant continue for another year until we can get more research if we need more research.’ But you can’t just stop the flow of hogs in 90 days.”
