Senate Democrats urge administration to protect food supply and essential workers

Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) took the lead on a Monday letter urging the Trump administration to act to protect the food supply and essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It is vital that we do everything we can to protect food supply workers,” Stabenow and 35 other Democratic senators wrote to Vice President Pence and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Homeland Security.

The letter comes as the food supply chain has been in the spotlight due to the closing of meat processing plants where workers have contracted the coronavirus.

Pork processor Smithfield Foods closed two more plants, one in Wisconsin and one in Missouri, last week, and a worker from its closed South Dakota facility died. Two employees of Tyson Foods’s Iowa plant have died, as well as four employees of Tyson Foods’s Georgia plant. 

“The severe shortages of adequate COVID-19 testing capability and personal protective equipment are exacerbating these problems. Lack of access to tests and personal protective equipment leaves essential food supply workers at even higher risk and makes the virus more likely to spread, harming more workers and further damaging our food supply chain,” the senators wrote.

The senators asked the administration about plans to keep essential food supply chain workers safe; what agencies are doing to create consistency from the food industry with regard to monitoring symptoms in employees, sanitation practices, social distancing and personal protective equipment standards; and if infections of inspectors caused any slowing of inspections or production, among other questions.

They requested answers by Friday. 

On Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) led a group of 26 Democratic members of Congress on a letter to Perdue, urging him to form a task force to identify rural challenges during the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is facing increasing pressure over inspections and calls for the agency to step in and purchase products to keep them from going to waste.