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Pork producers warn of aging barns, permitting hurdles and disease threats to supply chain
Summary
Pennsylvania pork industry leaders said many confinement barns are aging while new barn demand has surged, permitting delays and financing gaps hinder construction, and disease threats (African swine fever, PRRS) make biosecurity and infrastructure investments urgent.
Coleman Wagner, president of the Pennsylvania Pork Producers Council, told the Agriculture & Rural Affairs hearing that Pennsylvania's hog industry faces an infrastructure inflection point: many confinement facilities are nearing the end of their useful life while demand for new barns has risen more than 40% since 2019.
Wagner said the industry relies largely on contract finishing arrangements and that new facility construction is blocked by high costs, permitting delays and lengthened timelines: "We're in the permitting process since 2023, and we're still working through the challenges," he said, noting that drawn-out township hearings and associated legal and engineering fees add material cost.
Why it matters: Witnesses said loss of local capacity could redirect animals and processing elsewhere and raise costs for producers and consumers. Wagner urged the creation of cost-sharing or low-interest facility loan programs to bridge the gap between current construction costs and contract terms that have not yet adjusted.
Wagner also highlighted disease risk, naming African swine fever (ASF) as the existential threat and noting that endemic diseases such as PRRS can be locally devastating. He said Pennsylvania's competitive advantage over Midwestern production is its "high biosecurity and high health levels" and advocated for state support to expand wash bays and related infrastructure to protect that advantage.
Ending: Wagner urged policy support for financing new facility construction, stronger township permitting consistency, and targeted investments in biosecurity infrastructure to protect Pennsylvania hog production and processing capacity.
