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# GRAPHIC: Despite COVID-19 closings and slowdowns, pork production was higher in 2020 than the year before
- URL: https://www.investigatemidwest.org/graphic-despite-covid-19-closings-and-slowdowns-pork-production-was-higher-in-2020-than-the-year-before/
- Published: 2022-01-26T23:19:44.000Z
- Updated: 2022-01-26T23:19:44.000Z
- Description: In four states with a large meatpacking footprint, production dropped 40% during outbreaks in the pandemic's first year. But overall production ended 2% higher than the year before.
- Author: Sky Chadde, Investigate Midwest
- Tags: Meat industry, Data Harvest, COVID-19 and Meatpacking, TP::Explainer, graphic of the week, Pork, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-06-18 04:56

At the start of the pandemic's first year, COVID-19 outbreaks forced [dozens](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/meatpacking-industry-hits-grim-milestone-of-10000-coronavirus-cases-linked-to-plants/) of meatpacking plants to close. Companies [claimed](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/graphic-as-industry-pushed-fears-of-meat-shortage-exports-increased/) there would be meat shortages.

Pork production — especially in the Midwest, which produces most of the nation's pork — dropped significantly after the first wave of outbreaks, starting in March 2020\. ([A handful of plants produce the majority of the country's pork.](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/graphic-just-17-plants-slaughtered-65-of-u-s-hogs-last-year/))

Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska combine to process more than 40% of all hogs in the country. In these states, between March and May 2020, the rate of slaughtering dropped 40% compared to that time period in 2019, [according to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis](https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=103080&ref=investigatemidwest.org).

But, by summer 2020, production had rebounded. By the end of that year, overall production in those four states was 2% higher than the previous year, which had no major disruptions.

\* *While Region 2 saw the greatest decrease in pork production, overall this area processes far fewer hogs than the other regions and so likely had a minimal impact on the nation's pork supply, [according to the USDA](https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/102784/ap-095.pdf?v=6645.6&ref=investigatemidwest.org).*

To be sure, companies producing more pork is a trend: Nationally, pork production has increased every year but one since 2010, [according to USDA figures](https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/A6C030F0-8670-3C66-8E8D-AA3C616D913C?pivot=short%5Fdesc&ref=investigatemidwest.org). But other years didn't have the large-scale dips in production for weeks on end that COVID-19 produced.

***\[Read more: [INFECTED, EXHAUSTED, DISTRESSED](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/meatpackingandcovid/)\]***

In December, USDA researchers [found](https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/102784/ap-095.pdf?v=6645.6&ref=investigatemidwest.org), during the pandemic's first few months, cases increased and production decreased. Then, production started to increase again, even as cases continued to mount, as the chart below shows.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/cd/d3/cdd3c059-8898-40b1-bcf7-cb2d3aa89775/content/images/investigatemidwest-org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/hog_slaughter.png)

***\[Read more: [GRAPHIC: As industry pushed fears of meat shortage, exports increased](As industry pushed fears of meat shortage, exports increased)\]***

The researchers attributed the rebounding production to more work performed on weekends; the steps plants took to protect workers, including more testing and providing PPE, that allowed them to keep clocking in; and the federal government [making meat processing an essential industry](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/a-week-before-trumps-order-protecting-meat-plants-industry-sent-draft-language-to-feds/), which allowed plants to remain open.

*Top image: Danielle Pycior, for Investigate Midwest*