Looming Food Crisis and How You Can Prepare

6 min readApr 29, 2020

Our nation is in unprecedented times. The pandemic has led to a shut down with disastrous ripple effects. The global supply chain has been disrupted and we are now facing the consequences of centralization and choosing efficiency over resilience. Governments have stopped the flow of people, distributing the migrant workers who aid farmers in planting, harvesting and raising animals. Meat processing plants have been shut down, creating a supply chain nightmare for farmers who desperately need a place to slaughter their incoming supply. Government regulation has made it difficult for farmers to adapt and shift from supplying restaurants/business/schools to getting the food into the hands of people who need it most.

So food rots in the fields. Animals are killed and their meat wasted. Many farmers will go bankrupt which will further strain the supply moving forward. In fact, many companies are facing bankruptcy, many small businesses will go out of business, millions of Americans will not have a jobs to return to. The knock on effects will send the economy into a severe recession or worse, a full depression.

It has never been more important to be self sufficient. To grow your own food. To stock up and prepare for the storm ahead. The answer to the centralization that failed us is decentralization. It means connecting with our neighbors, building support networks locally. It means finding our local farmers and signing up for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). The more empowered we are, the better chance we have to weather the storm ahead.

National Journal Pandemic exposes inefficiencies in agriculture. Commodity prices have plummeted. The American Farm Bureau Federation said last week that between Jan. 2 and April 15, soybean prices declined 13 percent, corn 20 percent, cotton 25 percent, live cattle 29 percent, ethanol 33 percent, and milk 35 to 40 percent.

CNN Tyson Foods is warning that “millions of pounds of meat” will disappear from the supply chain as the coronavirus pandemic pushes food processing plants to close, leading to product shortages in grocery stores across the country.

CNBC Meatpacking plants responsible for 10% of all beef production and 25% of all pork production have closed, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union said Thursday.

CNN One of the country’s largest pork processing facilities is closing until further notice as employees fall ill. The closure puts the country’s meat supply at risk, said the CEO of Smithfield, which operates the plant.

“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” he said. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain.”

Baltimore Sun Nearly 2 million chickens at farms in Maryland and Delaware will be destroyed instead of processed for meat, a result of coronavirus-related staffing shortages at processing plants.

Politico USDA let millions of pounds of food rot while food-bank demand soared.

“It’s not a lack of food, it’s that the food is in one place and the demand is somewhere else and they haven’t been able to connect the dots.

The precipitous drop in demand left many growers with no choice but to trash excess food or leave it in the fields because the cost of picking, packing and storing the crops would only put them further in the hole.

Reuters Mandatory coronavirus quarantines of seasonal foreign workers in Canada could hurt that country’s fruit and vegetable output this year, and travel problems related to the pandemic could also leave U.S. farmers with fewer workers than usual.

“If the farm doesn’t produce, the city doesn’t eat.”

Globally there are a number of issues

Bloomberg Some governments are moving to secure domestic food supplies during the coronavirus pandemic.Is this the start of a wave of food nationalism that will further disrupt supply chains and trade flows?

“You could see wartime rationing, price controls and domestic stockpiling”

“Without the food supply, societies just totally break”

Food and Grain Russia cuts off wheat and other grain exports. Kazakhstan, one of the world’s biggest shippers of wheat flour, banned exports of that product along with others, including carrots, sugar and potatoes. Vietnam temporarily suspended new rice export contracts

NPR China has lost 350 Million pigs due to African Swine Fever, almost a quarter of global pig supply.

Scientific American “Unprecedented” Locust Invasion Approaches Full-Blown Crisis. The spreading swarms, triggered by cyclone rains, threaten crops in East Africa. The situation is now the worst they’ve seen in 25 years “and the worst Kenya has seen for 70 years,” CERF administrators added.“A swarm the size of Rome can eat enough food in one day as everybody in Kenya.” More breeding cycles are expected. The swarms increase in size twentyfold with each successive generation and could reach India by June.

Bloomberg Locust are destroying wheat crops in Pakistan. The locusts reached eastern Pakistan from Iran in June 2019 and have damaged cotton, wheat, corn and other crops.

On top of the governmental response to the pandemic massive disrupting the supply chain, farmers have been dealing with unusual weather since last year.

Brownfield USDA’s Chief Meteorologist is warning farmers about a series of upcoming cold waves. Brad Rippey says when weather like this hit the U.S. in 2007 and 2017, it caused over a billion dollars in damage each year. “There’s certainly a concern for any early-planted row crops that get hit with sub-freezing temperatures, (and) for winter wheat which has begun to advance to the join stage or beyond.”

Along with existing wet conditions in much of the country, Rippey expects some areas to have planting delays over the next two to three weeks because of hard freezes.

Insurance Journal For the second year in a row, much of the U.S. is primed to suffer multi-billion dollar flood losses, with farmers already steeling themselves for planting delays. Relentless storms that have marched across the Midwest and into the South this winter have already filled rivers to the brim and are threatening to make farm fields too soggy to plant as spring arrives. And there isn’t much to suggest an easing ahead. Heavy rains forecast through next week could push waterways higher where the Mississippi and Ohio meet in Illinois, and into northern Mississippi and Arkansas.

Popular Science Last year’s historic floods ruined 20 million acres of farmland

Eater The U.S. is currently in the midst of its wettest season in 12 months, with regions of the Great Plains and Midwest — where much of the nation’s corn and soy is produced — bearing the brunt of this spring’s rainfall. Not only are homes being damaged as a result of the extreme flooding, but the conditions are making it damn near impossible for farmers to plant their crops.

Washington Post U.S. corn planting this spring (2019) has crawled at its slowest pace in 40 years. It now may be at a standstill. Last week, the USDA lowered the projected total yield to 13.68 billion bushels (2018 corn yield was 14.3 billion bushels).

World — Grain The US is the world’s largest corn producer and currently exports 10–20% of annual production. However, this year, the US imported 60,000 tonnes of corn from Brazil driven by crop failures in the US.

Bloomberg Lowest US Wheat Crop in 100 years

ABC Record-low yield for soybean farmers “We’re talking about missing about 25% of the crop that would have normally been planted, and then the yields are down about 10%, so were looking at a 30% or more loss of bushels of soybeans produced this year compared to a year ago,” said Seamon. A recent study by the USDA predicts at least a 31% decrease in Michigan Soybean production, and Seaman says that drop will be felt economically.