South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds wrote to President Trump urging the administration to take additional steps to address the food production crisis. He asked the President to invoke the Defense Production Act which will help keep food production plants open safely. Following that, Trump issued an executive order to keep all meat processing plants open through the DPA. South Dakota Pork Producers Council President Craig Andersen says he’s glad the Senator made that request and now the President has followed through.

He says even getting smaller processing plants running and taking some of the backlog of animals would be positive but the realization is that getting the larger ones back up and operating will take time.

Andersen says his group is hoping the Sioux Falls Smithfield Plant will come back as soon as possible but knows that won’t happen overnight.

Environmental Groups are denouncing the President’s actions to invoke the Defense Production Act claiming that prematurely re-opening those plants will cause catastrophic harm.