Just as the local-foods movement is growing legs in the Midwest, a key piece of infrastructure is struggling.
Many small poultry-processing plants have closed across the country, in large part because of challenges making a profit in the face of strict regulations and difficulty finding laborers.
Without the plants, small farmers say, it’s difficult or impossible to provide fresh, locally produced meat to local groceries and farmers markets.
Professor R. Scott Beyer, a poultry specialist at Kansas State University and secretary of the Kansas Poultry Association, said the trend toward fewer plants “is true of all types of meat processing.” The wealth of regulations that plants must follow makes it tougher for smaller plants to stay in business, he said.
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