The coronavirus pandemic greatly disrupted our food supply. Outbreaks impeded work at many regional packing plants. When big plants reduced line speed, backing up finished livestock on the farm, beef and pork producers turned to local processors to fill the void. This created a bottleneck at every local meat locker plant in the state. They simply did not have the capacity or equipment to keep up with demand. Small- and mid-sized livestock producers are struggling as a result. Before the pandemic, a typical producer scheduled locker dates 4-6 weeks in advance. Now, the wait time can be twelve to twenty four months. This means reservations must be made often before the animal is even born. 

With that in mind, last year I introduced LB324, which included the creation of the Independent Processors Assistance Program to provide grants for small- and mid-sized meat producers, and was passed by the Legislature and signed into law. There was no funding allocated for the program at that time and I have been working for a year on securing funds to help our struggling meat lockers. The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) provides funding for industries impacted by covid-19 and presents a funding opportunity.

The State of Nebraska is receiving over one billion dollars from ARPA. On January 25th, a hearing was held on LB1014, which is Governor Ricketts’ proposal for ARPA appropriations. I was honored and excited to see that almost ten million dollars was included in his proposal, introduced by Speaker Mike Hilgers, for the Independent Processors Assistance Program for small and medium processors. The full bill will be debated on the floor of the Legislature in the coming weeks and I am happy to have the support of the funding for meat processors from Nebraska’s agricultural groups, including the Center for Rural Affairs and the Nebraska Cattlemen. 

My bill LB755 formalizes this ARPA funding request, which I introduced on the first day of new bill introduction in early January. Technically, the bill appropriates $10 million to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture which would go into the Independent Processors Assistance Program for grants for small and medium meat processors. The hearing for this bill will be held on Wednesday, February 9th at 1:30pm in the Appropriations Committee and I look forward to hearing from meat processors and how this funding will help them. I believe this ten million dollars is an excellent use of ARPA funds to help the meat industry, my district and meat eaters everywhere.