The shutdown threatens America’s food security

It’s not a good idea to tell Wisconsin Dairy farmer Lisa Condon, “Don’t cry over spilt milk.”  She’s one of the dairy farmers who each day has to pour milk down the drain. As she points out, “Whoever says you shouldn’t cry over spilled milk never watched your life’s work going down the drain.”

What’s happening to Condon is symptomatic of what’s happening in agriculture all over the United States. Our food supply chain is broken at both ends. Many in agriculture are worried about both the demand for their product and the supply they can provide.

The shutdown’s malign influence on our food supply is a prime example of what the great French economist and politician, Bastiat, said more than 170 years ago.  In his essay on What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen, he talks about the visible effects of policies.  But he also talks about the unseen effects, ones that can be far more consequential and onerous than the visible ones.

The deaths that will result from ending the shutdown will be both deeply tragic and highly visible. These deaths, to use Bastiat’s term, are “visible,” because we know the numbers, and they involve individuals with names. However, the unseen effects of the shutdown, if it continues for long, could cause far more suffering and death. You may have read that suicide and drug overdoses increase with unemployment.

However, let’s focus now on another unseen effect: the longer the shutdown lasts, the greater the threat to our food supply.

Take Condon’s case as an example of what’s going wrong.  The demand for milk is enormous.  Unfortunately, the demand she’s geared up for is for institutional buyers such as schools, restaurants, and sporting events. When a dairy plant specializes in producing those little pint-size containers of milk you’d find in schools, the plant can’t just flip a switch and fill the gallon containers popular in retail stores.

The supply chain breaks because the container manufacturers who produce the pint-size containers for schools need to retool to provide gallon size containers. They also need to find the truckers to transport them. But many of the employees who could do the retooling or provide the transportation are at home, taking care of the children who otherwise would be in school.

Condon’s fellow dairy farmer Carrie Mess explains that milk ends up being dumped because, “Our dairy plants aren’t equipped to store extra milk.”

While the shutdown disruptions mean milk has to be dumped, retail demand is a different story. In grocery stores, the demand for milk by the gallon is so great that in many regions, people are only allowed to purchase one gallon at a time.

For dairy farmers, this shutdown-caused mismatch between supply and demand threatens their ability to maintain their herds.  Shutting down the economy has had the dual effect of children going without milk and more than a few dairy farmers wondering how long they can stay in business.

Dairy isn’t alone in experiencing shutdown-caused threats to their industry. The near absence of demand from restaurants, schools, and institutional buyers means specialized crops grown for these buyers are too often plowed under. According to Maine potato grower Sue McCrum, “Forty percent of our annual potato crop are processing potatoes grown expressly for use within the food service industry.”

Since the restaurant businesses and schools are mostly closed down, those potatoes aren’t being sold.  Growers in Maine could be planting 15% to 20% fewer potatoes in May, when their planting season begins.  These cutbacks are happening all over the United States.

Ruth Jensen, President of Florida Agri-Women has a similar concern but for different crops.  She worries that in Florida, the fresh produce industry typically caters to restaurants, hotels, cruises, conferences and conventions.  With these businesses shut down, she worries that a prolonged shutdown will cause the specialty crops “…to end up in garbage bins across Florida’s agricultural landscape.”

Jane Marshall from Ohio notes, “It’s spring, so we are getting ready to plant corn and soybeans.  The price will be low because of the low demand for these livestock feed crops.  And because of the low gas prices, it is not profitable to use corn for ethanol. This exacerbates the low corn prices even further.”  Farmers who know they’ll have trouble selling their products at a price that will cover their costs have every temptation to plant less.

Rachel Gray, a Minnesota cattle producer says, “The Minnesota beef industry is suffering. We are seeing a wide-spread price drop in the market and the shutdown is pushing the cattle industry to the brink. The effects will be felt for years. I am worried about our protein supply chain.”

One of the crops Kathy Reavis of Texas grows is onions. She knows her fellow onion growers, especially in Oregon and Idaho, have had to plow under hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of onions. They’ll be planting less acreage in coming years. The problem is, it takes money to plant the fields, fertilize them, weed them, harvest them, and the farmers are up against the double injury of reduced income and uncertain markets.  Speaking for many in her industry, Reavis says, “It will mean a reduction in the onions we grow next year.”

The threats to our food supply are not easily seen, at least not at the moment. However, when farmers have to destroy food because there are no buyers, and when they end up planting smaller crops, there will be less food.   Where this will lead or how bad it will get is unknown. What we do know is, the longer the shutdown lasts, the worse the problem gets.

When it comes to ending the shutdowns, count us as two women who lean towards ending the shutdown sooner rather than later.

Karolyn Zurn is president of American Agri-Women.  Mitzi Perdue, is a past president.  American Agri-Women is this country’s oldest and largest farm women’s organization.