“Farmers across Alaska are fighting to keep a state-run slaughterhouse from closing its doors,” reports KTUU-TV in Anchorage. Mt. McKinley Meats and Sausage, one of only three meat-processing plants in Alaska, operates with a workforce from the state prison system. State legislators announced plans last month to close the facility as a money-saving step. Based in Palmer, the plant is the only USDA-certified slaughterhouse in south-central Alaska.
The director of the Alaska Farm Bureau told KTUU, “We’re going to recommend that the state continue ownership of the plant, with a possible lease option to an entity of either a co-op or a small group of people who are willing to take it on and invest in it and run it privately.” The plant handles about 1,000 head of livestock a year. The state took over operation of the plant in 1986 and it has lost money almost every year since.