Absurdities Amid COVID-19 - Plowing over Crops and Dumping Milk

As if heart-wrenching confirmation of tens of thousands of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States (US) is not enough to confirm the destructive effects of the disease, then stark images of farmers, facing distribution problems, plowing over edible crops and draining nutritious milk into sewers, are more than sufficient to question the rationale of wasting food in a time of deepening unemployment and unprecedented food lines.

At the time of writing, according to data by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), world COVID-19 pandemic infections numbered 2,424,419 with 166,256 deaths; in the US, confirmed cases stood at 760,570 with 40,702 deaths.

The pandemic has wrecked havoc upon the global economy grinding most production to a halt, soaring unemployment and growing food insecurity.

Media reports last week across the US revealed shocking events by some farmers to plow over perfectly edible crops from zucchini to celery, while others drained good milk into the sewers because of a breakdown in the agriculture distribution process. Absurd events against food in a time of need.  From Florida to Virginia and elsewhere, farmers complained of the inability of getting their produce market. 

In the absence of a working link between farmers, the public and national food banks, farmers felt compelled to destroy their crops instead of donating them. In the meantime, from California to Texas and elsewhere, unprecedented lines of out of work people are depleting the stock of charitable food banks adding to more absurdities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.