The COVID-19 pandemic was not only a health crisis but also a food crisis, as it highlighted serious weaknesses in the food system of USA. Many Americans were unaware of the danger lurking until they were confronted with empty shelves in food stores in the spring of last year, comments POLITICO.
Beginning with the initial outbreak of the pandemic, congestion problems in supply chains caused their collapse, which is still ongoing, in all parts of the food system from production farms to processing centers and store shelves.
Farmers are faced with the sudden loss of places where they distributed fruit, vegetables, animals and grains, were forced to bury millions of kilos of grain, slaughtered herds or throw away their milk.
There were serious reasons for this. Outbreaks of coronavirus, which spread rapidly among workers in rural areas, as well as in workers in treatment plants, among vulnerable populations who often had limited access to health services, prevented the seeds from being harvested. the industrial processing of meat.
As the meat processing industry is so concentrated, the shutdown of even a few processing plants has suddenly left US livestock owners with no choice as to where to send their livestock for slaughter.
Food banks, on the other hand, struggled to meet rising demand as the unemployed and suspended workers faced a sudden loss of financial income.
The food and agricultural and livestock communities are sounding the alarm over the possibility of the US facing similar food supply collapse and other future crises, not just pandemics.
With the acceleration of the climate crisis, extreme weather events are becoming more common, while the number of cyber attacks is increasing. Thus, the agricultural industry points out that more disturbances are not only a possibility, but a certainty.
“Reality has confirmed that there can be a break in this system and everyone has felt it,” said Iowa State Secretary of Agriculture Mike Neig.
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