The recent turn of events in our world has frightened many people. The economy is plummeting. The rate of unemployment increases daily, and along with these employment concerns, many have been concerned at some point about the supply in our American grocery stores. Our world has been tested time and time again with pandemics causing major pandemonium. Agriculture has withstood the trials of these viruses, and will continue to do so this time around. Farmers will continue to work and provide for the world. So just how does agriculture function during the time of pandemic? We will take a look at this in a series called Ag in the Time of Pandemic. This is the first post of the series- Cutting our Losses.
One of the most frustrating things that we have heard about in the agriculture industry throughout this time is the amount of waste that has occurred. Of course, we’ve always been conscious that America produces some of the largest amounts of food waste in the world. You can read about that here. During this pandemic though, we have heard about it more than usual. You might have heard of milk dumping, disposal of eggs, plowing of vegetables and maybe even euthanizing of animals. This is heartbreaking to farmers and their families who depend on those commodity sales, and confusing to consumers who can’t find these things in their stores. So why are we throwing out perfectly good food?
Unfortunately, we throw out good food on any given day. You may have heard of a company called Imperfect Foods. They sure have been advertised on my social media a lot. This company takes “ugly” food, food that is not visually appealing or is atypically shaped for that item, and ships it to your door for a fee. There are a few other companies out there that do this as well, and it all stems from the want to eliminate food waste. On a good day, many produce farmers can end up throwing out over 40% of their crops because of physical imperfections. Consumers don’t want weirdly shaped potatoes or squash. Now that a pandemic has hit, these produce farmers are having an even harder time finding places for their crops to go. With restaurants, schools, and other food related businesses shutting down, farmers have their normal amount of product yield with nowhere to send it. People are stocking up on things they can freeze, or that have a long shelf life; not perishable produce. It takes months to grow enough yield to fill just one market. Farmers couldn’t have planned for this and now, there’s nowhere for it to go. So it gets destroyed.
A similar conundrum is happening in the dairy world, where much of their milk goes to schools. Schools all over the country have been shut down for the remainder of the 19-20 school year, and some have even cancelled summer school or child care. This is worse than restaurants being shut down, because restaurants can at least offer take out or delivery. Restaurants have decreased the amount of dairy needed, especially for things like butter and high end cheeses, but they haven’t completely abandoned the dairy industry like education. According to AgriLife Today, “orders for tens of millions of single-use milk cartons stopped when schools across the nation emptied.” Unfortunately, even though dairy isn’t needed at this rate anymore, dairy cows still have to be milked daily for their health and safety. If you don’t milk a cow, you risk mastitis, infections, or worse. On the other hand, you have grocery stores struggling to put milk on their shelves in some places. Why can’t we just use the milk that would have gone to schools and restaurants to fix this? One problem is, different cows produce different types of milk for those high end cheeses and butter. They have different fat contents and qualities that make them different than the regular milk we buy at the store. Another problem is, some facilities simply aren’t set up to package and deliver to stores. School milk and restaurant milk is not packaged the same way that grocery store milk is. Again, these farmers have a perishable commodity and nowhere to send it. Much of the lack of product in grocery stores is a problem of transport, not a problem of supply. That goes for any product, not just dairy.
In the meat industry, many producers are having trouble finding somewhere to send their cattle or hogs for processing. They have herds of healthy cattle ready for market but packing plants have shut down. Farmers were expecting to have sold those herds and have enough space and feed for the new herds. The consumption of meat hasn’t stopped. Shoppers are purchasing all kinds of meat to freeze and stock up. The closure of the packing plants is the problem here. Once again, we have market ready product with nowhere to send it. It costs farmers a lot of money to keep cattle on their land, or buy feed for them. It also violates animal welfare rules to have too many animals on a certain amount of acres. This has led to farmers being advised to euthanize cattle. The only suggestions that the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has come up with is “keep your cattle on grass longer” and being careful when determining the schedule for selling young calves. They also want farmers to limit the amount of new calves being born. This seems like solid logic, but some farmer’s sole income comes from breeding new calves to sell for beef. It also doesn’t help the fact that many cows are already in gestation and have to give birth at some point. I’m no expert, but I would also worry that if we stopped the breeding of cattle now, to slow down the amount of overly ready cattle going to slaughter, that we would not be able to meet demands of consumers when the pandemic dies down. The NCBA goes on to remind farmers that they should be mindful of the long list of issues that occur if they feed their cattle to higher weights than normal. Just like it’s not healthy for humans to be excessively overweight, it isn’t good for cattle either. So basically, your options are to feed your cattle longer and risk health problems and carcass problems, or euthanize. Neither option leaves farmers with much of an income. If an animal has carcass problems, that means they can’t use as much of the meat as normal, so the farmer doesn’t get paid as much for the carcass. Plus, if they are treating health problems of overly fat cattle then they have higher bills to pay. The last bit of advice that the NCBA gives the farmers is to discuss options with veterinarians and nutritionists about care for cattle, nutrition, and management before euthanizing. They don’t want us to euthanize, but the alternative options are not much better.
I would like to end with what you can do to help prevent farmers from cutting their losses and wasting food. First, you can keep shopping like normal. I know they may be out of some things at the store, but don’t panic buy everything else. Second, read the post linked at the beginning of this post on food waste. Freeze food that you think might go bad. Learn what your expiration labels mean-does it say “best before” or “use by”? Typically you can still consume items after a “best before” or “sell by” date. Try shopping for ugly produce! I mentioned Imperfect Foods above, but there are other companies out there that offer similar services. Continue to donate food. National Geographic mentions that people are buying and stocking up on food for themselves and so food bank donations have plummeted. Lastly, do some research. Click on the links below to help you better understand. These are the links I used to write this post, and are not based off of biased news sources. This post was not sponsored by any of the companies of the affiliate links.
https://www.imperfectfoods.com/our-mission
https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2020/04/11/meat-and-milk-producers-impacted-by-covid-19/
https://files.constantcontact.com/9ceb5b51701/dcd9124b-80f7-4cf3-9fcc-b6a5575adf35.pdf
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