Farmers Forced to Let Crops Rot and Throw Away Milk While Food Bank Demand Soars
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Farmers are forced to let crops rot and throw away milk while food bank demand soars.
Last week, Isabel Solorio turned away five families from the Lanare food bank serving farmworkers in rural Fresno County.
There just wasn’t enough food to feed the 215 families who showed up. It was twice the number of families that needed food a week earlier, she said.
But that same week, on a farm just 20 minutes away, at least two fields of fresh lettuce were disced back into the ground, left to rot as the restaurants that buy the produce struggle to stay afloat. Solorio’s husband works on that farm and suggested that the farm donate the lettuce to a food bank.
“But who is going to pick it?” she asked.
The coronavirus has forced the entire world into disarray, but the food industry in particular. With restaurants closing or reshaping business models around slimmed-down take-out menus, the dominoes are starting to fall for the farmers who suddenly have nowhere to take their food.
And, at the same time, as more people find themselves out of work, food banks are teeming with hungry families. But getting food from fields to the hungry families that need it isn’t as simple as it sounds, industry experts say.
Click here to read the full article from CalMatters.
