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Heat Is Costing the U.S. Economy Billions in Lost Productivity

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From meatpackers to home health aides, workers are struggling in sweltering temperatures and productivity is taking a hit.As much of the United States swelters under record heat, Amazon drivers and warehouse workers have gone on strike in part to protest working conditions that can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.On triple-digit days in Orlando, utility crews are postponing checks for gas leaks, since digging outdoors dressed in heavy safety gear could endanger their lives. Even in Michigan, on the nation’s northern border, construction crews are working shortened days because of heat.Now that climate change has raised the Earth’s temperatures to the highest levels in recorded history, with projections showing that they will only climb further, new research shows the impact of heat on workers is spreading across the economy and lowering productivity.Extreme heat is regularly affecting workers beyond expected industries like agriculture and construction. Sizzling temperatures are causing problems for those who work in factories, warehouses and restaurants and also for employees of airlines and telecommunications firms, delivery services and energy companies. Even home health aides are running into trouble.“We’ve known for a very long time that human beings are very sensitive to temperature, and that their performance declines dramatically when exposed to heat, but what we haven’t known until very recently is whether and how those lab responses meaningfully extrapolate to the real-world economy,” said R. Jisung Park, an environmental and labor economist at the University of Pennsylvania. “And what we are learning is that hotter temperatures appear to muck up the gears of the economy in many more ways than we would have expected.”A study published in June on the effects of temperature on productivity concludes that while extreme heat harms agriculture, its impact is greater on industrial and other sectors of the economy, in part because they are more labor-intensive. It finds that heat increases absenteeism and reduces work hours, and concludes that as the planet continues to warm, those losses will increase.The cost is high. In 2021, more than 2.5 billion hours of labor in the U.S. agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and service sectors were lost to heat exposure, according to data compiled by The Lancet. Another report found that in 2020, the loss of labor as a result of heat exposure cost the economy about $100 billion, a figure projected to grow to $500 billion annually by 2050.A U.P.S. delivery in Manhattan on Monday.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesOther research found that as the mercury reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit, productivity slumps by about 25 percent and when it goes past 100 degrees, productivity drops off by 70 percent.And the effects are unequally distributed: in poor counties, workers lose up to 5 percent of their pay with each hot day, researchers have found. In wealthy counties, the loss is less than 1 percent.Of the many economic costs of climate change —- dying crops, spiking insurance rates, flooded properties — the loss of productivity caused by heat is emerging as one of the biggest, experts say.“We know that the impacts of climate change are costing the economy,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, director of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, and a former global executive for environmental and social risk at Bank of America. “The losses associated with people being hot at work, and the slowdowns and mistakes people make as a result are a huge part.”Still, there are no national regulations to protect workers from extreme heat. In 2021, the Biden administration announced that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would propose the first rule designed to protect workers from heat exposure. But two years later, the agency still has not released a draft of the proposed regulation.Seven states have some form of labor protections dealing with heat, but there has been a push to roll them back in some places. In June, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed a law that eliminated rules set by municipalities that mandated water breaks for construction workers, even though Texas leads all states in terms of lost productivity linked to heat, according to an analysis of federal data conducted by Vivid Economics.Business groups are opposed to a national standard, saying it would be too expensive because it would likely require rest, water and shade breaks and possibly the installation of air-conditioning.Martin Rosas, the vice president for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union International. “When it’s extremely hot, and their safety glasses fog up, their vision is impaired and they are exhausted, they can’t even see what they’re doing,” he said of the workers he represents.Brett Deering for The New York Times“OSHA should take care not to impose further regulatory burdens that make it more difficult for small businesses to grow their businesses and create jobs,” wrote David S. Addington, vice president of the National Federation of Independent Business, in response to OSHA’s plan to write a regulation.Marc Freedman, vice president of employment policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said, “I don’t think anyone is dismissing the hazard of overexposure to heat.” But, he said, “Is an OSHA standard the right way to do it? A lot of employers are already taking measures, and the question will be, what more do they have to do?”The National Beef slaughterhouse in Dodge City, Kan., where temperatures are expected to hover above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the next week, is cooled by fans, not air-conditioning.Workers wear heavy protective aprons and helmets and use water vats and hoses heated to 180 degrees to sanitize their equipment. It’s always been hot work.But this year is different, said one worker, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. The heat inside the slaughterhouse is intense, drenching employees in sweat and making it hard to get through a shift, the worker said.National Beef did not respond to emails or telephone calls requesting comment.Martin Rosas, a union representative for meatpacking and food processing workers in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, said sweltering conditions present a risk for food contamination. After workers skin a hide, they need to ensure that debris doesn’t get on the meat or carcass. “But when it’s extremely hot, and their safety glasses fog up, their vision is impaired and they are exhausted, they can’t even see what they’re doing,” Mr. Rosas said.Almost 200 employees out of roughly 2,500, have quit at the Dodge City National Beef plant since May, Mr. Rosas said. That’s about 10 percent higher than usual for that time period, he said.Maria Rodriguez, who has worked at the same McDonald’s in Los Angeles for 20 years, walked out on July 21.Jessica Pons for The New York TimesBut even some workers in air-conditioned settings are getting too hot. McDonald’s workers in Los Angeles walked off the job this summer as the air-conditioned kitchens were overwhelmed by the sweltering heat outside.“There is an air-conditioner in every part of the store, but the thermostat in the kitchen still showed it was over 100 degrees,” said Maria Rodriguez, who has worked at the same McDonald’s on Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles for 20 years, but walked out on July 21, sacrificing a day of pay. “It’s been hot before, but never like this summer. I felt terrible — like I could pass out or faint at any moment.”Nicole Enearu, the owner of the store, said in a statement, “We understand that there’s an uncomfortable heat wave in LA, which is why we’re even more focused on ensuring the safety of our employees inside our restaurants. Our air-conditioning is functioning properly at this location.”Tony Hedgepeth, a home health aide in Richmond, Va., cares for a client whose home thermostat is typically set at about 82 degrees. Last week, the temperature inside was near 94 degrees.Any heat is a challenge in Mr. Hedgepeth’s job. “Bathing, cooking, lifting and moving him, cleaning him,” he said. “It’s all physical. It’s a lot of sweat.”Warehouse workers across the country are also feeling the heat. Sersie Cobb, a forklift driver who stocks boxes of pasta in a warehouse in Columbia, S.C., said the stifling heat can make it difficult to breathe. “Sometimes I get dizzy and start seeing dots,” Mr. Cobb said. “My vision starts to go black. I stop work immediately when that happens. Two times this summer I’ve had heart palpitations from the heat, and left work early to go to the E.R.”In Southern California, a group of 84 striking Amazon delivery workers say that one of their priorities is getting the company to make it safe to work in extreme heat. Last month, unionized UPS workers won a victory when the company agreed to install air-conditioning in delivery trucks.Amazon delivery drivers striking at the company’s Palmdale, Calif., warehouse and delivery center on Tuesday.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Heat has played a tremendous role — it was one of the major issues in the negotiations,” said Carthy Boston, a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters representing UPS drivers in Washington, D.C. “Those trucks are hotboxes.”Many factories were built decades ago for a different climate and are not air-conditioned. A study on the effects of extreme temperatures on the productivity of auto plants in the United States found that a week with six or more days of heat exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit cuts production by an average of 8 percent.In Tulsa, Okla., Navistar is installing a $19 million air-conditioning system at its IC Bus factory, which produces many of America’s school buses. Temperatures on the floor can reach 99 degrees F. Currently, the plant is only cooled by overhead fans that swirl high above the assembly line.Shane Anderson, the company’s interim manager, said air-conditioning is expected to cost about $183 per hour, or between $275,000 and $500,000 per year — but the company believes it will boost worker productivity.Other employers are also adapting.Brad Maurer, who leads a construction contracting business in Michigan, where heat has caused his employees to stop working hours before quitting time at some sites.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesBrad Maurer, vice president of Leidal and Hart, which builds stadiums, hospitals and factories in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, said managers now bring in pallets of bottled water, which they didn’t used to do, at a cost to the company of a few thousand dollars a month.Rising heat around Detroit recently caused his employees to stop working three hours early on a Ford Motors facility for several days in a row — a pattern emerging throughout his company’s work sites.“It means costs go up, production goes down, we may not meet schedules, and guys and women don’t get paychecks,” Mr. Maurer said. Labor experts say that as employers adapt to the new reality of the changing climate, they will have to pay one way or the other.“The truth is that the changes required probably will be very costly, and they will get passed on to employers and consumers,” said David Michaels, who served as assistant secretary of labor at OSHA during the Obama administration and is now a professor at the George Washington School of Public Health.“But if we don’t want these workers to get killed we will have to pay that cost.”David Gelles More

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    Who’s to Blame for a Factory Shutdown: A Company, or California?

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    VERNON, Calif. — Teresa Robles begins her shift around dawn most days at a pork processing plant in an industrial corridor four miles south of downtown Los Angeles. She spends eight hours on her feet cutting tripe, a repetitive motion that has given her constant joint pain, but also a $17.85-an-hour income that supports her family.So in early June, when whispers began among the 1,800 workers that the facility would soon shut down, Ms. Robles, 57, hoped they were only rumors.“But it was true,” she said somberly at the end of a recent shift, “and now each day inches a little closer to my last day.”  The 436,000-square-foot factory, with roots dating back nearly a century, is scheduled to close early next year. Its Virginia-based owner, Smithfield Foods, says it will be cheaper to supply the region from factories in the Midwest than to continue operations here.“Unfortunately, the escalating costs of doing business in California required this decision,” said Shane Smith, the chief executive of Smithfield, citing utility rates and a voter-approved law regulating how pigs can be housed.Workers and company officials see a larger economic lesson in the impending shutdown. They just differ on what it is. To Ms. Robles, it is evidence that despite years of often perilous work, “we are just disposable to them.” For the meatpacker, it is a case of politics and regulation trumping commerce.The cost of doing business in California is a longtime point of contention. It was cited last year when Tesla, the electric-vehicle maker that has been a Silicon Valley success story, announced that it was moving its headquarters to Texas. “There’s a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area,” said Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, mentioning housing prices and long commutes.As with many economic arguments, this one can take on a partisan hue.Around the time of Tesla’s exit, a report by the conservative-leaning Hoover Institution at Stanford University found that California-based companies were leaving at an accelerating rate. In the first six months of last year, 74 headquarters relocated from California, according to the report. In 2020, the report found, 62 companies were known to have relocated.Dee Dee Myers, a senior adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, counters by pointing to California’s continued economic growth.“Every time this narrative comes up, it’s consistently disproven by the facts,” said Ms. Myers, director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. The nation’s gross domestic product grew at an annual pace of 2 percent over a five-year period through 2021, according to Ms. Myers’s office, while California’s grew by 3.7 percent. The state is still the country’s tech capital.Still, manufacturing has declined more rapidly in California than in the nation as a whole. Since 1990, the state has lost a third of its factory jobs — it now has roughly 1.3 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — compared with a 28 percent decline nationwide.The Smithfield plant is an icon of California’s industrial heyday. In 1931, Barney and Francis Clougherty, brothers who grew up in Los Angeles and the sons of Irish immigrants, started a meatpacking business that soon settled in Vernon. Their company, later branded as Farmer John, became a household name in Southern California, recognized for producing the beloved Dodger Dog and al pastor that sizzled at backyard cookouts. During World War II, the company supplied rations to U.S. troops in the Pacific.Leo Velasquez, 62, started working at the plant in 1990. He had hoped to stay there until he was ready to retire.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesAlmost 20 years later, Les Grimes, a Hollywood set painter, was commissioned to create a mural at the plant, transforming a bland industrial structure into a pastoral landscape where young children chased cherubic-looking pigs. It became a sightseeing destination.More recently, it has also been a symbol of the state’s social and political turbulence.In explaining Smithfield’s decision to close the plant, Mr. Smith, the chief executive, and other company officials have pointed to a 2018 statewide ballot measure, Proposition 12, which requires that pork sold in the state come from breeding pigs housed in spaces that allow them to move more freely.The measure is not yet being enforced and faces a challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. If it is not overturned, the law will apply even to meat packed outside the state — the way Smithfield now plans to supply the local market — but company officials say that in any case, its passage reflects a climate inhospitable to pork production in California.Passions have sometimes run high outside the plant as animal rights activists have condemned the confinement and treatment of the pigs being slaughtered inside. Protesters have serenaded and provided water to pigs whose snouts stuck out of slats in arriving trucks.In addition to its objections to Proposition 12, Smithfield maintains that the cost of utilities is nearly four times as high per head to produce pork in California than at the company’s 45 other plants around the country, though it declined to say how it arrived at that estimate.John Grant, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which represents Ms. Robles and other workers at the plant, said Smithfield announced the closing just as the sides were to begin negotiating a new contract. “They’re kicking us out with no answers,” said Teresa Robles, who has worked at the factory for four years.Mark Abramson for The New York Times“A total gut punch and, frankly, a shock,” said Mr. Grant, who worked at the plant in the 1970s. He said wage increases were a priority for the union going into negotiations. The company has offered a $7,500 bonus to employees who stay through the closing and has raised the hourly wage, previously $19.10 at the top of the scale, to $23.10. (The rate at the company’s unionized Midwest plants is still a bit higher.)But Mr. Grant said the factory shutdown was an affront to his members, who toiled through the pandemic as essential workers. Smithfield was fined nearly $60,000 by California regulators in 2020 for failing to take adequate measures to protect workers from contracting coronavirus.“After all that the employees have done throughout the pandemic, they’re now all of a sudden going to flee? They’re destroying lives,” said Mr. Grant, adding that the union is working to find new jobs for workers and hopes to help find a buyer for the plant.Karen Chapple, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, said the closing was an example of “the larger trend of deindustrialization” in areas like Los Angeles. “It probably doesn’t make sense to be here from an efficiency perspective,” she said. “It’s the tail end of a long exodus.”Indeed, the number of food manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles County has declined 6 percent since 2017, according to state data.  And as those jobs are shed, workers like Ms. Robles wonder what will come next.More than 80 percent of the employees at the Smithfield plant are Latino — a mix of immigrants and first-generation native-born. Most are older than 50. The security and benefits have kept people in their jobs, union leaders say, but the nature of the labor has made it hard to recruit younger workers who have better alternatives.On a recent overcast morning, the air in Vernon was thick with the smell of ammonia. Workers wearing surgical masks and carrying goggles and helmets walked into the plant. The sound of forklifts hummed beyond a high fence.Massive warehouses line the streets in the area. Some sit vacant; others produce wholesale local baked goods and candies. Mario Melendez, who has worked at the plant for a decade, says he feels betrayed by the company.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesMs. Robles started at the Smithfield plant four years ago. For more than two decades she owned a small business selling produce in downtown Los Angeles. She loved her work, but when her brother died in 2018, she needed money to honor his wish to have his body sent from Southern California to Colima, Mexico, their hometown. She sold the business for a couple of thousand dollars, then started at the factory, making $14 an hour.“I was proud,” she said, recalling the early months at her new job.Ms. Robles is the sole provider for her family. Her husband has several health complications, including surviving a heart attack in recent months, so she now shoulders the $2,000 mortgage payment for their home in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Sometimes her 20-year-old son, who recently started working at the plant, helps with expenses.“But this is my responsibility — it is on me to provide,” she said.Ms. Robles has long recited the Lord’s Prayer every night before bed, and now she often finds herself repeating it throughout the day for strength.“They’re kicking us out with no answers,” she said.Other workers, like Mario Melendez, 67, who has worked at the plant for a decade, shares that unmoored feeling.It’s an honor to know his labor helps feed people across Southern California, he said — especially around the holidays, when the factory’s ribs, ham and hot dogs will be part of people’s celebrations.But the factory is also a place where he contracted coronavirus, which he passed along to his brother, who died of the virus, as did his mother. He was devastated.A truck carrying pigs entering the plant. Animal rights activists have sometimes protested outside.Mark Abramson for The New York Times“A terrible shock,” said Mr. Melendez, who says he feels betrayed by the company.So does Leo Velasquez.He started on the night shift in 1990, making $7 an hour to package and seal bacon. A few years later, he moved to days, working 10-hour shifts.“I’ve given my life to this place,” said Mr. Velasquez, 62.Over the years, his body began to wear down. In 2014, he had shoulder replacement surgery. Still, he had hoped to continue at the factory until he was ready to retire.“That’s not going to happen,” he said. “Where I go from here, I do not know.” More

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    U.K. Braces for a Difficult Holiday Season Due to Shortages

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    Military personnel are driving transport trucks. Pig farmers may start culling their stock. Even the government says shortages will affect Christmas, as Britons brace for a challenging winter.BUNGAY, England — To understand the deep sense of anxiety Britons feel about the supply shortages currently afflicting the nation — and threatening disruptions to the Christmas dinner table — one need only travel to Simon Watchorn’s pig farm, about two hours northeast of London.In 2014, Mr. Watchorn was England’s pig farmer of the year, with a thriving business. But this year, he said, the outlook for the fall is bleak.Slaughterhouses are understaffed and are processing a smaller-than-usual number of pigs. There is a shortage of drivers to move pork to grocery stores and butcher shops. And there are fewer butchers to prepare the meat for consumers.If the problems persist, Mr. Watchorn may have to start culling some of his 7,500 pigs by the end of next month. Pigs grow about 15 pounds each week, and after a certain point, they are too big for slaughterhouses to process.Mr. Watchorn said the last time he can remember things being this bad was during an outbreak of mad cow disease in the late 1990s. “It’s a muddle,” he said. “It’s worse than a muddle, it’s a disaster, and I don’t know when it’s going to finish.”Mr. Watchorn, 66, is one of many producers of food and other goods warning of a daunting winter ahead for Britons. Shortages continued to bedevil the British economy on Monday as gas stations in London and in southeastern England reported trouble getting fuel, and the government began deploying military personnel to help ease the lack of drivers. Supermarket consortiums say pressures from rising transport costs, labor shortages and commodity costs are already pushing prices higher and will likely continue to do so.The chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, acknowledged on BBC Radio on Monday that there will shortages at Christmastime. He said the government was doing “everything we can” to mitigate the supply chain issues but admitted there was no “magic wand.”Mr. Watchorn, whose farm is near the town of Bungay, England, northeast of London, is convinced that Brexit is responsible for the current distress.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Watchorn, who prides himself on running a farm where all adult stock live outside, is convinced that Brexit is responsible for the current distress, saying the exodus of European workers from Britain had led to damaging labor shortages. The British people voted to break with the European Union to reduce immigration, he believes, without realizing how damaging a cliff-edge exit from the bloc would be for businesses.“They didn’t vote for supermarket shortages,” he said on Sunday as dozens of pigs gathered around him to be fed. “They didn’t understand that was going to be a probable, likely outcome.”Mr. Sunak and other Conservative leaders say supply problems are a global issue largely attributable to the pandemic and not limited to Britain. Indeed, businesses around the world are facing rising energy prices, product shortages and labor shortages.But the challenges in Britain are acute, with many industries facing a shortage of workers — in part because of the pandemic, but also, many business owners say, because of stricter immigration laws that came into effect after Britain’s exit from the European Union on Jan. 1.“We are desperately trying to find workers,” said Jon Hare, a spokesman for the British Meat Processors Association, which estimates that Britain is short of about 25,000 butchers and processing plant workers.He called on the government to issue more short-term visas to foreign workers to help the industry with the transition outside of the European Union. “There are only so many people you can take out of the production system before the system starts breaking down,” he said.A shopper confronted sparse food shelves in a Co-op supermarket in Harpenden, England, in September.Peter Cziborra/ReutersThe specter of disruptions to the holiday season is particularly resonant in Britain, where Christmas isn’t Christmas without traditional foods. And yet British meat producers say the dinner table could be lacking some of the seasonal specialties that people count on every December. That includes pigs in a blanket (bacon-wrapped sausages that are different from the American version), glazed ham and Yorkshire pudding, which require additional labor to prepare, Mr. Hare said.The National Pig Association has warned that about 120,000 pigs are backed up on farms because of a lack of slaughterhouse workers, and the British Poultry Council said it expected to cut Christmas turkey production by 20 percent. On Monday, protesters gathered outside of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester with signs that said “All we want for Christmas is our pigs in a blanket” and “#saveourbacon.”Consumers are already anticipating shortages. One farmer in Leeds said that by last month, customers had already ordered all 3,500 turkeys she was raising for Christmas — a first.A lack of truck drivers has also caused sporadic shortages for staples including eggs, milk and baked goods. One in six people in Britain said that in recent weeks they had not been able to buy certain essential food items because they were unavailable, according to a report by the Office for National Statistics, which surveyed about 3,500 households.Some consumers interviewed in recent days said they had not had any trouble finding what they wanted at grocery stores. But Meriem Mahdhi, 22, who moved from Italy to Colchester in southeast England last month to attend college, said she had struggled to find essential items at her local grocery store, Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain.“All the dried foods like pasta, canned fruit, it’s all gone, every day,” she said. Tesco did not respond to a request for comment.Seeking a quick fix, 200 military personnel in fatigues on Monday arrived at refineries to help deliver fuel to gas stations. About half of them drove civilian vehicles and the others provided logistical support. “As an extra precaution we have put the extra drivers on,” Mr. Sunak said.Over the weekend, the government said it had extended thousands of temporary visas for foreign workers to work in Britain until the first few months of next year. But economists said the temporary visas were unlikely to be enough to make much of a difference, since there are shortages at every link in the supply chain.“There is a lack of workers coming in, and British people are not willing to do the job,” said Robert Elliott, a professor at the University of Birmingham. He said it was difficult to say how much of the supply-chain issues were a result of Brexit versus the pandemic, but regardless, the government has chosen policies that have not made the situation better.The government has underinvested in training workers to drive trucks, he said, and too few young people are pursuing the profession to replace ones who have retired.Even before Brexit, the meat industry had difficulties attracting workers because of the hard work, low pay and remote locations of processing plants. Producers have raised wages for butchers by an average of 10 percent this year, the British Meat Processors Association said, but shortages are still so severe that members of the British Poultry Council reported they had cut weekly chicken production by five to 10 percent.Mr. Watchorn said the situation was “a disaster, and I don’t know when it’s going to finish.”Andrew Testa for The New York TimesJames MacGregor, the general manager at Riverford, an organic food company based in Devon, England, said he was short of about 40 workers, or about 16 percent of the company. Butchers have been particularly hard to find, he said. To cope with the shortages, Riverford will likely offer fewer products for sale around Christmas.“It feels like we’re staring down the barrel of a gun a little bit at the moment,” Mr. MacGregor said. “It’s highly likely if we don’t see movement in terms of fuel and labor, we will ultimately end up passing some of this cost on to the consumer.”Kathy Martyn, the owner of Oakfield Farm in East Sussex, which has about 100 pigs, said she was relieved to find fuel on Friday, just in time to make it to a catering job for a wedding over the weekend. She said that fuel shortages have made planning difficult, and that she may have to cull about 20 of her pigs this year.“We’ll just roll up our sleeves and take a deep breath,” Ms. Martyn said.Mr. Watchorn, the pig farmer, said his farm will be losing money this year. Even culling pigs is costly. If it comes to that, he would have to find someone to slaughter the animals and then take them away. Financial help from the government to do that would help, but he said he was not counting on it. “When pigs fly,” he quipped.Mr. Watchorn said the last time he can remember things being this bad was during an outbreak of mad cow disease in the 1990s.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesAina J. Khan More