The temporary closure of Smithfield Foods' Sioux Falls pork processing plant seem to have been the trigger for media interest in the potential disruption of the US food supply chain.
Since the food supply chain is vast and complex, the initial stories reflect that. There's a lot of room for misinformation and confusion, which will inevitably be exploited.
The Russian state-sponsored site RT shoehorned it into a story about CANNIBAL RATS:
https://www.rt.com/usa/485722-starving-rats-coronavirus-food-supply/
Source: https://twitter.com/EGA_Patriot/status/1249825854315782145
Here more from Sullivan's statement. I think you need to read this, at least partly, in the context of Sullivan strongly advocating for reopening because his primary concern is the company's bottom line. Not that he does not have other concerns about health and welfare, but this is his job.
https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/pre...oux-falls-sd-plant-indefinitely-amid-covid-19
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/politics/what-matters-april-13/index.html
Since the food supply chain is vast and complex, the initial stories reflect that. There's a lot of room for misinformation and confusion, which will inevitably be exploited.
The Russian state-sponsored site RT shoehorned it into a story about CANNIBAL RATS:
https://www.rt.com/usa/485722-starving-rats-coronavirus-food-supply/
Massie is a Libertarian-style Republican, and some conspiracy theories pop up in his Twitter comments.As media warns of WARRING CANNIBAL RATS in US cities, (human) food production quietly crashes from Covid-19 closures
13 Apr, 2020 22:55
America’s “brittle” food supply chain is going to result in supermarket shortages and processing plant closures, while farmers and ranchers will be forced to destroy their products, Massie warned, slamming people in the US government who “have no clue about how the economy works.”
Six of the largest US processing plants have already shut down, the Kentucky congressman said. The latest closure came on Sunday, when Smithfield extended the shutdown of its Sioux Falls, South Dakota pork processing plant because almost 240 of its 3,700 employees contracted the coronavirus. The plant accounts for up to five percent of total US pork production.
“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Smithfield CEO Ken Sullivan said in a statement. “We have a stark choice as a nation: we are either going to produce food or not, even in the face of Covid-19.”
Source: https://twitter.com/EGA_Patriot/status/1249825854315782145
Here more from Sullivan's statement. I think you need to read this, at least partly, in the context of Sullivan strongly advocating for reopening because his primary concern is the company's bottom line. Not that he does not have other concerns about health and welfare, but this is his job.
https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/pre...oux-falls-sd-plant-indefinitely-amid-covid-19
CNN wrote an overview of some of the issues:“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply. It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running. These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers. These farmers have nowhere to send their animals,”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/politics/what-matters-april-13/index.html
I think we'll see much more about this over the next few weeks. Food uncertainty and insecurity is a primal fear, which makes it a great news story. This will likely lead to an increase in hoarding, with a subsequent vicious cycle of more stories about empty shelves, more fear, more hoarding.
It's time to talk more seriously about the food supply
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN. Updated 1:41 AM ET, Tue April 14, 2020
"It is a cascading series of events here that is disrupting the entire food chain," said Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who served as secretary of agriculture during the Obama administration, in an interview with CNN on Monday. "You start ending school lunch programs, universities shut down, food service shuts down, tourism and hotels have low occupancy and at the end of the day you have a tremendous amount of the overall supply of food having to be redirected."
He said the government will need to spend money to buy food from growers and give it to food banks.