The Next Catastrophe Heading Our Way: Food-- And What Trump And Congress Are NOT Doing About It

-by Helen Klein

The nation’s food supply is not going very well. What will be done about it? Is anyone in government looking at it?

Last week on MSNBC, Chris Hayes aired, "The Real Reason Grocery Shelves are Empty" (above). This segment highlighted the massive amounts of food currently rotting and being dumped: thousands of gallons of milk are being spilled from storage facilities, eggs are being smashed and farmers are plowing under tons of vegetables. Why? Because there is a huge discrepancy between food grown for commercial distribution, such as for schools, restaurants, hotels and businesses, and food grown for consumers, to be sold in grocery stores. Due to the widespread closings of so many businesses and the ubiquitous stay-at-home orders in most states, the demand for food for commercial purposes has virtually dried up: farmers in this industry no longer have buyers. Yet consumer demand has increased exponentially. The supply chains are under stress because there is no method to send the food predestined for commercial entities to people and families.

Chris Hayes asked Jessie Newman, Wall Street Journal agricultural reporter, an obvious question: Why can’t food grown for commercial purposes be sent to consumers? She explained that unfortunately, this could not be easily and quickly done. The answer, it turns out, is complicated. The supply chains for commercial and consumer food distribution are vastly different. The relationships, distribution patterns, food preferences and packaging cannot easily be shifted from one to the other. To do so would be extremely challenging and costly. And take time.

While this problem has a few parallels to the current oil crisis, with no one needing or wanting oil and businesses no longer needing or wanting commercially grown food, food IS and always will be needed and wanted, regardless of the reasons behind why it is grown. The demand at Food Banks and supermarkets all over the country is skyrocketing.





On MSNBC’s The Last Word (4/16/20), Lawrence O’Donnell focused on the lengthy lines of cars and hours long waits at Food Banks, demonstrating the tremendous and drastically increasing demand for consumer food. In Dallas, over 3,000 cars lined up. In San Antonio, over 10,000 cars lined up. Eric Cooper, who runs a food bank there, said the demand is unprecedented: the food is going out as fast as it is coming in. There is a two to three week supply in their warehouses and it may soon run out. Then what? The Feed America network has seen explosive growth and is now desperate for food. The supply chains are struggling to keep up. Scenes are similar in Los Angeles, New York, and many other places around the country. And this is only the beginning of this critical aspect of the pandemic catastrophe.

Massive unemployment and loss of income are having drastic deleterious effects on feeding families. People are behind in their rent and car insurance and many have lost their health insurance, thanks to the employment tied policies that everyone was touting just a few months ago. Food is a necessity and is becoming the first priority. The desperation will only increase in coming months.

In 1943, the psychologist, Abraham Maslow presented his famous Hierarchy of Needs that motivate human beings. This construct continues to have meaning today. Maslow identified five categories of human need:

• Physiological
• Safety
• Love
• Esteem
• Self-actualization

While people in industrialized nations have taken pride in rising up the pyramid to be the best they can be, the pandemic is drawing Americans back down to the base and very foundation of the hierarchy: Physiological needs. These needs are the requirements of life and essential for survival: needs such as food, air, shelter, clothing, sleep, etc. According to Maslow, we can only reach for needs further up the hierarchy when people feel they have sufficiently satisfied the previous need.

There is some overlap in the various needs, which means that lower levels may take precedence back over the higher levels at any time. Right now, the American dream appears to be moving backwards and sliding down the pyramid. We are heading back to the basics of human survival. Will many Americans soon be starving? Will this become another horrendous parallel to the 1930’s Depression?

What can be done about all of the commercially produced food that is being destroyed and wasted while Food Banks and supermarket shelves are inching close to empty?

This exposes another blatant need for the federal government to step in and act swiftly to prepare for increasingly massive food shortages. The Defense Production Act comes to mind as a critical tool that could be used in fighting hunger in the USA. Will Trump use it for this purpose? As far as I know, this has not even come up yet as a possibility. Of course, he has refused to use the Act to supply Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), critical in fighting this virus, so why would he be willing to use it for food?

Reading up on the ACT, which came into being in 1950 during the Korean War, there are three main sections:

The first authorizes the President to require businesses to accept and prioritize contracts for materials deemed necessary for national defense. This is regardless of potential loss incurred to the businesses and allows for prohibition of hoarding or price gouging.

The second authorizes the President to establish mechanisms to allocate materials, services and facilities to promote national defense.

The third authorizes the President to control the civilian economy so that scarce and critical materials necessary for defense are available.

The Act also authorizes the President to requisition property, force industry to expand production and the supply of basic resources, impose wage and price controls, settle labor disputes, etc., and allocate raw materials towards national defense.

The ACT seems perfectly designed to mobilize the food industry and shift commercial food production to consumer food production. To do so NOW, before the shortages become overwhelming, would make perfect sense. Being proactive is the name of the game.

Thus far the Trump administration has refused to implement the ACT. If only common sense, practicality and expertise had any place in the current administration. The coming disaster with food seems obvious but there has been little discussion about this or proposals to deal with it.

Congress, of course, could take a leading role in this rising catastrophe and allocate money to shift food production from commercial to consumer, but little attention has been paid to this issue in the media. So far, none of the bills being proposed in Congress address food.

This is a very complicated issue. Should surplus commercial food be donated? Should the government buy it from the producers and promote industry to repackage and redistribute it? How can this be done? At the very least, critical discussions should be taking place by experts in the field. Perhaps Jared Kushner could take it on?

Self Portrait As Gatherer (2017) by Julie Heffernan