Below was a post from a group I'm in. What is the impact on food supply short and long term due to this extended shutdown and govt regulation? I've seen many stories of dairy farmers dumping milk into fields that is going sour. Meat plants are being shut down left and right. The entire YUUUUGE food distribution chain shutdown that supplies restaurants and hotels etc.... They cannot convert a lot of that food over to "retail" packaging fast enough for grocery stores.
FYI, I buy high quality beef and pork direct from local farmers, better and cheaper. We are going to see a huge increase in demand for local commerce like that.
Does anyone worry about what "they" are doing to our food supply? We own a small family dairy farm. We got a letter in the mail at the beginning of this telling us to be prepared to dump our milk. They said we should cut back on production by culling some cows, drying some up early and cutting back their feed so they wouldn't produce as much. Local farmers have been dumping millions and millions of gallons of milk. The milk price is almost the lowest we've seen it...it had been looking good for this year, after many years of low prices.
The same is happening in the egg industry, and also the beef industry, and vegetables- piles of rotting veggies in the fields, smashing eggs.... It's criminal!
But, the crazy part is that the stores are limiting what can be purchased, and the prices are jacked way up.
My theory is that they are trying to feed the panic by creating the illusion that there is a food shortage.
All the talking heads say that this is bc the restaurants and schools are closed, so the demand is way less. BUT people didn't stop eating- if anything they're eating more {dairy products} than ever (comfort food/home cooking). Part of my theory is that they need to get rid of small farms like ours bc we can supply local people with food. A large factory farm is much easier to control, and when they control the food supply they control the people. Something just doesn't add up.
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[–] [deleted] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago (edited ago)
[–] 23462976? [S] ago (edited ago)
agree mostly. however extended shutdowns is going to ruin many producers as demand is down. people eat less when limited to grocery, and also economic damage people will be spending less. I think there will be lots of supply destroyed, namely smaller farmers. There is an opportunity for them to sell direct if they get some marketing going. But how they get around regulation for dairy, meat etc...is another subject. It's time to open up some more local meat markets and processors!
the foodservice distributors have to be getting killed, Sysco, US foods etc... that biz has been decimated.
we'll be the last country to ever starve but things will be severely impacted from what they were.
[–] 23476788? ago
I wish local independent butchers would come back. It's been harder and harder to find a local butcher that is an independent (I don't know of any near where I live now). I preferred going to them, the meat was much better because they were usually selling their own animals that they raised. Now, it's all grocery store chains or big box stores.