Ag businesses struggle despite essential status

COLUMBUS - Nebraska’s livestock market is deemed an essential industry and live auctions continue across the state, but Travis Bock, the fourth generation owner of the Columbus Sales Pavilion, tells us Covid-19 brings unprecedented challenges.

Bock says, "This is something that nobody has gone through. I don't think my grandfather, who own the business prior to this, nor my great grandfather... has seen anything like what is going on now." 

The unstable market gets no help from barren sale barns, filled only with a handful of buyers, all separated by six or more feet.

"We try to follow the directions that the Governor and Department of Ag have told us, and it has been a tough deal. Everybody is really struggling with not being able to do what they have done in the past."

Many of the auctions have been carried live online for the past four or five years, and the number of sales completed virtually has more than doubled during these times. However, many sellers that are now barred from being in the auction are struggling to adjust.

"When you work that hard all year long to put a product out there you want to represent them. It is tough for the seller not to represent them the way they have in the past."

It is possible a new Directed Health Measure could move all sales to the online format, but Bock doesn’t even want to imagine the ripple effect that would come from shutting the doors on buyers.

"I don't even want to think about them closing us. We are the second part of the essential process of meat... if we don't sell them to those producers, there is not going to be meat on the shelves for people to eat."

The livestock market typically slows down by the end of Spring, picking up again toward the end of Summer, and many buyers and sellers feel like it is critical things are close to normal by that time.

"It will be essential. If we can't get back to where we were this Fall it's going to hurt a lot of people."