30 APRIL 2020 - STANHOPE, IOWA: WES ZANKER, and his wife, SHAUNNA ZANKER owners of Stanhope Locker and Market, in Stanhope, Iowa, in front of their store. The family owned meat locker slaughters and butchers beef cattle, pigs, and sheep. The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2/Coronavirus) pandemic has spread among employees in the meat packing plants in the Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Minnesota, forcing many to close or curtail operations. This has resulted in farmers euthanizing thousands of pigs and beef cattle. Pork production has been slashed by about 40% because of the pandemic. Meat lockers and family owned butchering facilities have been swamped with farmers and ranchers trying to sell their livestock to them rather than the meat packing plants, but the meat lockers are backed up by the huge increase in supply. Many meat lockers are now full through the end of the year. Stanhope Locker and Market doesn't have any openings for slaughtering and butchering either cattle or pigs until mid-December 2020. PHOTO BY JACK KURTZ