Hunger Grows, Food Rots, and the USDA Moves at a Sloth's Speed

[Newest Reality]

People in this country are hungry. Not just the usual regulars at food banks and soup kitchens, either; as unemployment numbers increase and families struggle to meet their basic needs, food insecurity becomes more and more common. Like these families, food banks across the country also struggle to meet this huge new demand. Ironically, much of the food that could be feeding these newly in-need populations is rotting in fields or being plowed under by farmers who cannot sell or transport their crops in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.

What we have is a food crisis in two places. A crisis at the source—farmers and producers—and a crisis for the consumers, those who most need the food. The one with the most options for resolving this crisis—the federal government—seems to have taken a back seat for the most part.

Almost half of the food grown in the US, prior to this pandemic, went to restaurants, schools, stadiums, theme parks, and cruise ships. This leaves farmers in a precarious position. Growers in warm weather states like Florida and California have produced bumper crops of fresh produce with nowhere to sell it. Losses to farms in this spring crop alone will be in the billions, according to a National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition report.

Those farmers willing to donate produce have found themselves with the dilemma of food banks without the storage facilities and volunteers to manage donations of this quantity. Writing in March, NPQ’s Ruth McCambridge noted the drop-off in on-site volunteers at food banks, on whom they depend for much of the packing and organizing for distribution of food, and how they have regrouped with new strategies for ways to get food to those in need. But even these new strategies cannot handle massive donations of fresh produce and dairy products without help from the federal government.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/hunger-grows-food-rots-and-the-usda-moves-at-a-sloths-speed/

[alwaysinasnit]

1. K&R Thanks for posting.

[Newest Reality]

2. You're Welcome. Thanks for the kick.

[alwaysinasnit]

5. I would never have thought it possible that with so much food, people are going to go hungry

on top of all the misery and fear inherent in dealing with this pandemic. And all because of the monsters controlling the federal levers of government.

[Igel]

13. The country is little different from the world.

We could easily feed everybody, but much of the food is in the wrong place.

We produce much more than we consume--even at the amount we waste.

Yemen, on the other hand, would need perpetual bumper crops to feed its population. It cannot grow enough food to feed its own population even in good years. (It's far from being the only country. But many blame the war for famine by interfering with food production. Hardly. The war's kept the ports closed so that food aid can't be delivered. No, Yemen also can't afford to buy the food its population needs. Even in good years.)

When you see food dumped, there are two possible reasons.

1. Nobody's there to harvest it. That can be handled the French way: Recruit urban unemployed to the countryside. The French did it. Could you imagine many Americans from cities signing up and getting on buses to harvest crops? 400k French signed up.

2. Nobody wants to buy it. That probably means institutional contracts. In other words, the calories are needed but mechanisms aren't nimble enough or the processing facilities are set up wrong. I worked in a restaurant long ago, and was used to large bags of lettuce, chopped eggs, large tubs of cottage cheese. If you're expecting to buy the farmer's output for packing in 5-lb tubs of cottage cheese, you're not set up for 12 oz tublings.

Or it means that the food was for export. No word on how food exports are going under COVID.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. I am fortunate in that I do not need the

stimulus money. As soon as mine arrived I sent half to a local food bank and half to a homeless shelter.

[Newest Reality]

4. Thank you!

Your generosity is compassion. They do need the help now, badly.

Appreciated.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Yes, I know.

I have also done volunteer work at that homeless shelter, so homeless people are not just faceless blobs to me.

I rather hope that Congress decides to send additional money to all of us each month, because I will definitely continue to give it away.

[mathematic]

6. I assume this means you support trump ordering meat processors open? nt

[Newest Reality]

8. No. /nt

[procon]

9. Why isn't the Defense Production Act put to use here?

Farmers are leaving their crops to rot in the fields, killing off their livestock, and dumping milk down the drain while grocery store shelves are bare. This is just idiotically wrong!

Farmers could still be paid, shippers, processor, packers, and distributors would get paid if the government stepped up and did it's job to keep America's food supply moving.

Maybe the farmers made a higher profit selling to corporate food giants, but they aren't open, neither are the restaurants or schools. But the food banks need food, the soup kitchens, agencies that serve the elderly, homeless families, prisons and the poor need that food. Our supermarkets and the corner markets need food. People need food.

Where the hell is Trump? So busy he missed his lunch did he? Maybe he can skip his din-din too and get the nation's food supply working.

[Newest Reality]

12. Good Question.

Add this one to a list of questionable inaction.

Sonny Perdue is the one to point towards, though. It would be his job to oversee and coordinate that, I think. One would assume that that would be a high priority in order to avoid increasing hunger and shortages that are looming.

More of the same as if letting it happen on purpose. Nefarious, in my view.

[Yeehah]

10. Sonny Perdue is a corrupt imbecile

The USDA will be dysfunctional as long as these trump bumpkins are in charge.

[Newest Reality]

11. As are...

As are the other Trump appointees. They either are inept or out to destroy what they oversee, or both.

So, a food crisis comes with that on top of everything else, which we are going to see play out now.