Lambton County's warden has written to the prime minister and Ontario's premier expressing concern about the agri-food industry.
Bill Weber said it's disturbing to see reports that more than a dozen meat processing facilities across North America have closed during the pandemic.
He said outbreaks of COVID-19 at slaughterhouses and plants have reduced the number of facilities and staff available to prepare and ship products to consumers.
"The agriculture sector is worried about being able to ship their commodities to the packing plant and wondering if we want to make sure that proper testing is going on at the packing plant so that they can continue operations," said Weber.
Weber said farmers are now facing increased costs to house animals longer or ship them further.
"If the packers can't operate to capacity, we may see shelves in grocery stores that don't have red meat, or pork, or chicken products because they're not being processed. It's not because the supply isn't there, it's the processing to get that to our grocery shelves so everyone has the food that we're used to."
Weber is asking that both levels of government work together to introduce measures like increased COVID-19 testing of agri-food workers at slaughterhouses and food processing plants to stem any further interruption of the supply chain and restore consumer confidence in the industry.
