The impact of rising costs has rippled across the entire agricultural. Farmers struggling with higher input costs and reduced income from lower crop yields and milk prices have had to cut corners, mainly by putting off big iron purchases and hanging on to older equipment.
Companies like John Deere and Agco laid off workers are shuttered plants due to falling sales and rising costs.
Food companies feeling the pinch from the shortage of U.S. cattle on the market have also struggled to keep up with operational costs. Those companies include giants Tyson Foods that closed three meat plants and laid off over 1,000 workers and Cargill, which cut 5 percent of its global workforce (8,000 job cuts).
Here are some Wisconsin agribusinesses impacted by the recession in the ag sector.
- CNH Industrial America LLC notified state officials the company plans to lay off 52 workers at its St. Nazianz facility. The permanent layoffs at the site, 511 E. Main St., will take place Nov. 14.
- Case tractor factory in Mount Pleasant plans to send jobs to Mexico a year after workers won wage increases through a lengthy strike. Corporate owners of the 180-year-old farm equipment manufacturer in Racine County are planning to cut about a third of its workforce. More cuts could be coming.
- The Birds Eye facility at 1201 Green Valley Road in Beaver Dam says 252 workers will lose their jobs as the facility shuts down. Food company Conagra Brands says all of its operations at the processing facility and warehouse will be ending by early 2025.
- Earlier this year, Del Monte Foods announced that it would be closing its Markesan plant in April, terminating 90 jobs. The labeling and shipping units were shut down later in the year. The Markesan plant processed green beans.
- Forty-four workers employed by DeForest-based ABS Global lost their jobs in April. The workers were employed at its facilities in Dekorra, Waunakee, Windsor and DeForest. The company said the layoffs were a result of company consolidation and the closure of the IntelliGen laboratory at the company’s Dekorra facility.
- Longtime forage equipment manufacturer H&S Manufacturing announced it will be closing its Clintonville facility and consolidating operations to its Marshfield location late this year. Company officials said the decision to downsize operations was a “crucial step towards forging a stronger, more efficient Hay & Forage Division”.
- Strauss Brands is leaving Franklin about two years after expansion efforts were halted.
- Strauss announced its plans on June 4 to close its Franklin facility at 9775 South 60th St. and relocate production of its grass-fed beef product line to Ruprecht, an Illinois-based division of Kilcoy Global Foods. The shuttering of the facility and loss of 90 jobs comes after owners scrapped plans for the expansion of a new 152,035-square-foot meatpacking plant. Plans of the expansion met with public pushback.
- Jenni-O announced in April is was closing its Jenni-O Turkey Store in Barron, Wisconsin. Thirty-eight positions at its hatchery operation were eliminated.
- Nearly 300 Saputo employees lost their jobs when Saputo announced that the goat cheese production facility in Lancaster was ceasing operation by March 2024. The company shuttered the goat cheese facility in Belmont, laying off nearly 200 employees.
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