Via Bloomberg:
The coronavirus pandemic is pushing the food supply chain to its limits.
Plant shutdowns are leaving Americans dangerously close to seeing meat shortages at grocery stores. Meanwhile, farmers are facing the likely culling of millions of animals and mass burial graves could soon be dug across the heartland.
“The food supply chain is breaking,” said John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods Inc., the biggest U.S. meat company.
Outbreaks are forcing the closure of some of the country’s biggest slaughterhouses, where tens of thousands of animals are processed daily. As the plants shutter, producers are left with nowhere to sell their livestock. It’s forcing farmers to make gut-wrenching decisions to dispose of their animals. The situation is so severe that the U.S. government is setting up a center partly to assist on “depopulation and disposal methods.”