All across America, store shelves
are emptying and people are becoming increasingly frustrated because they can’t
get their hands on needed supplies. Most Americans are blaming “hoarders”
for the current mess, but it is actually much more complicated than that.
Normally, Americans get a lot of their food from restaurants. In fact,
during normal times 36 percent of all Americans eat at a fast food
restaurant on any given day. But now that approximately 75 percent of the U.S. is under some
sort of a “shelter-in-place” order and most of our restaurants have shut down,
things have completely changed. Suddenly our grocery stores are being
flooded with unexpected traffic, and many people are buying far more than usual
in anticipation of a long pandemic. Unfortunately, our food distribution
systems were not designed to handle this sort of a surge, and things are really
starting to get crazy out there.
I would
like to share with you an excerpt from an email that I was sent recently.
It describes the chaos that grocery stores in Utah and Idaho have been
experiencing…
When this
virus became a problem that we as a nation could see as an imminent threat,
Utah, because of its culture of food storage and preparing for disaster events
seemed to “get the memo” first. The week of March 8th grocery sales more than
doubled in Utah, up 218%. Many states stayed the same with increases in some.
Idaho seemed to “get the memo” about four days later. We were out of water and
TP four days after Utah. Then we were out of food staples about four days
later. Next was produce following a pattern set by Utah four days earlier.
The
problem for us in Idaho was this. The stores in Utah were emptied out then
refilled twice by the warehouses before it hit Idaho. Many of these Utah stores
have trucks delivering daily. So when it did hit Idaho the warehouses had been
severely taxed. We had a hard time filling our store back up even one time. We
missed three scheduled trucks that week alone. Then orders finally came they
were first 50% of the order and have dropped to 20%. In normal circumstances we
receive 98% of our orders and no canceled trucks. Now three weeks later, the
warehouses in the Western United States have all been taxed. In turn, those
warehouses have been taxing the food manufacturers. These food companies have
emptied their facilities to fill the warehouses of the Western United States.
The East Coast hasn’t seemed to “get the memo” yet. When they do what food will
be left to fill their warehouses and grocery stores?
Food
distribution and resources for the Eastern United States will be at great peril
even if no hoarding there takes place. But of course it will.
Additionally the food culture of
the East Coast and other urban areas is such that people keep very little food
on hand. They often shop several times weekly for items if they cook at home.
They don’t have big freezers full of meat, home canned vegetables in their
storage rooms, gardens, or beans, wheat, and rice in buckets in the their
basements.
With most
of the country locked down, normal economic activity has come to a standstill,
and it is going to become increasingly difficult for our warehouses to meet the
demand that grocery stores are putting on them.
Meanwhile, our farmers are facing
severe problems of their own. The following comes from CNBC…
The U.S.-China trade war sent scores of farmers out of
business. Record flooding inundated
farmland and destroyed harvests. And a blistering heat wave stunted crop growth in the
Midwest.
Now, the coronavirus pandemic has
dealt another blow to a vulnerable farm economy, sending crop and livestock
prices tumbling and raising concerns about sudden labor shortages.
The chaos
in the financial markets is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and
it is going to remain difficult for farm laborers to move around as long as
“shelter-in-place” orders remain in effect on the state level.
Iowa farmer Robb Ewoldt told
reporter Emma Newburger that “we’ve stopped saying it can’t get worse”, and he
says that this coronavirus pandemic looks like it could be “the straw that broke the camel’s back”…
“We were already under extreme
financial pressure. With the virus sending the prices down — it’s getting to be the straw that broke the camel’s back,”
said Iowa farmer Robb Ewoldt.
“We were hoping for something good
this year, but this virus has stopped all our markets,”
he said.
Of course this comes at a time
when millions of Americans are losing their jobs and
unemployment is shooting up to unthinkable levels. Without any money coming
in, many people are already turning to alternative sources of help in order to
feed themselves and their families.
On Monday, hundreds of cars were lined up to get food from a
food bank in Duquesne, Pennsylvania. To many, this was eerily reminiscent
of the “bread lines” during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Hundreds
of cars wait to receive food from the Greater Community Food Bank in Duquesne.
Collection begins at noon. @PghFoodBank @PittsburghPGpic.twitter.com/94YFaO7dqX
— Andrew Rush (@andrewrush) March 30, 2020
And it is also being reported that
the number of people coming for free meals on Skid Row in Los Angeles has tripled since that city was locked down.
Sadly,
these examples are likely only the tip of the iceberg of what we will see in
the months ahead.
And it won’t just be the U.S. that
is hurting. The following comes from a Guardian article
entitled “Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns”…
Kazakhstan, for instance,
according to a report from Bloomberg, has banned exports of wheat flour, of
which it is one of the world’s biggest sources, as well as restrictions on
buckwheat and vegetables including onions, carrots and potatoes. Vietnam, the
world’s third biggest rice exporter, has temporarily suspended rice export contracts.
Russia, the world’s biggest wheat exporter, may also threaten to restrict
exports, as it has done before, and the position of the US is in doubt given
Donald Trump’s eagerness for a trade war in other commodities.
If this
pandemic stretches on for an extended period of time, food supplies are
inevitably going to get even tighter.
So what
can you do?
Well, perhaps you can start a
garden this year if you don’t normally grow one. Apparently this pandemic
has sparked a tremendous amount of interest in gardening
programs around the country…
Because of the coronavirus pandemic,
more people are showing an interest in starting home gardens. Oregon State University‘s
(OSU) Master Gardener program took notice of the growing interest.
To help citizens who want to grow
their own food, the university kindly made their online vegetable
gardening course free until the end of April. OSU’s post on Facebook has been shared over 21,000
times.
Food is
only going to get more expensive from here on out, and growing your own food is
a way to become more independent of the system.
But if you don’t have any seeds
right now, you may want to hurry, because consumer demand is spiking…
“It’s the
largest volume of orders we have seen,” said Jere Gettle of Baker Creek
Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield, Missouri. Peak seed-buying season for home
gardeners is January to March, but the normal end-of-season decline in orders
isn’t happening.
Customers are gravitating to
vegetables high in nutrients, such as kale, spinach and other quick-to-grow
leafy greens. “Spinach is off the charts,” said Jo-Anne van den Berg-Ohms of
Kitchen Garden Seeds in Bantam, Connecticut.
For years, I have been warning
people to get prepared for “the perfect storm” that was coming, but of course
most people didn’t listen.
But now it
is upon us.
Desperate
people have been running out to the grocery stores to stock up on toilet paper
only to find that they are limited to one or two packages if it is even
available.
And now
that “panic buying” of seeds has begun, it is probably only a matter of time
before many stores start running out.
We have
reached a major turning point in our history, and things are only going to get
crazier.
Unfortunately,
the vast majority of Americans still have absolutely no idea what is ahead of
us…
About the Author: I am a
voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay
asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News,
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