US President Donald Trump has ordered meat processing plants to stay open to protect the nation's food supply amid the coronavirus pandemic.
He invoked a Korean War-era law to mandate that the plants continue to function, amid industry warnings of strain on the supply chain.
An estimated 3,300 US meatpacking workers have been diagnosed with coronavirus and 20 have died.
The UN last month warned the emergency threatened global food supply chains.
Twenty-two US meatpacking plants across the American Midwest have closed during the outbreak.
They include slaughterhouses owned by the nation's biggest poultry, pork and beef producers, such as Smithfield Foods, Tyson Foods, Cargill and JBS USA.