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NCBA president says Tyson’s Lexington shutdown hits local producers

The president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says Tyson’s Lexington, Nebraska plant closure continues to strain local producers.  Nebraska cattle feeder Buck Wehrbein says production is being shifted to Amarillo, so daily slaughter capacity shouldn’t decline.   “However, the cattle aren’t in the right place,” he says. 

He tells Brownfield the change will be very hard on the people who utilized Lexington.  “They’re going to have to take them someplace else,” he says.  “Who pays the freight, the extra freight, things like that. That’s all going to need to be taken care of in a process.”

Wehrbein says there were several factors that likely contributed to its closure. “It’s not really a surprise that we lost those plants because the herd is down so far,” he says. “We were all worried about this. And then having the border closed stopped a million feeder cattle from coming from Mexico that might have stopped this from happening.”

The facility, which employed more than 3,000 people, had a harvest capacity of 5,000 cattle per day, which is about 5 percent of total daily U.S. beef slaughter. 

The facility officially closed on January 20^th.