Stephan: Beneath the Covid-19 pandemic and the civil rights demonstrations that have completely taken over the media another kind of Trumpian pandemic is growing -- the food crisis.
As you can see in this article it is estimated that 54 million American, men, women, and children are going to find it very difficult to get enough to eat. That's 16 percent of the country's population. And when you look at the map you see this is not going to be even spread across the country. It is going to be the Red value, Republican controlled states that are mostly going to face this oncoming hunger. Because Trump is making no preparations for any of this, I fear that we are going to see hunger zoom to a level never witnessed in this country since the Great Depression.
As I read the agricultural literature I see an increasing number of stories of farmers fearful they will have to plow their crops under because there is no one to work for them to harvest what has been grown. And even when food is available the prices are going to put it out of reach of many. Six dollars for a head. of lettuce. Two dollars an ear for corn.
A record number of Americans face hunger this year as the catastrophic economic fallout caused by the coronavirus pandemic looks set to leave tens of millions of people unable to buy enough food to feed their families.
Nationwide, the demand for aid at food banks and pantries has soared since the virus forced the economy to be shutdown, resulting in more than 40m new unemployment benefit claims, according to the latest figures.
As a result, an estimated one in four children, the equivalent of 18 million minors, could need food aid this year – a 63% increase compared to 2018.
Overall, about 54 million people across the US could go hungry without help from food banks, food stamps and other aid, according to an analysis by Feeding America, the national food bank network.
America’s food insecurity crisis was dire even before the Covid-19 pandemic, when at least 37 million people lived in households without adequate resources to guarantee consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life.
Food insecurity varies vastly from state to state, and county to county, and had only recently fallen […]
I note another important article from the British press that does not make the american News cycle. Sad.