How Smock Farms Survived Plant Closures

Provided by Farm Journal’s Pork | Written by: Jennifer Shike| July 2020 The fear of the unknown kept Ashlyn Imus awake at night when packing plants began to shutter last spring due to employee absenteeism and COVID-19. “You simply had no idea what could happen or what was going to happen,” Imus says. “On one hand, I wondered if it was real. Was it being overexaggerated in the media?” As the farm manager at Smock Farms in Idaville, Ind., Imus oversees a 100,000-head, wean-to-finish operation and