Posted by: hikermor
Re: Meat Processing Plants Closing - 04/21/20 02:29 AM
A moderate reduction in the meat supply might have some benefit, During WWII there were apparently some improvements in public health due to the consumption of lesser amounts of fat. This source makes brief mention of this:
u-s-history.com/pages/h1674.html
I started elementary school during WWII, and as a picky eater, I did not always relish what was served, I never went hungry.
Posted by: Janysboy
Re: Meat Processing Plants Closing - 04/21/20 01:34 PM
My sister is an occupational nurse at a large meat packing plant in New Mexico. She has told me the pandemic has had a significant impact on the plant, with some older workers furloughed, hours of operation cut back, abd lexan shields put in place to seperate the workers at a 6 foot distance.
Posted by: dougwalkabout
Re: Meat Processing Plants Closing - 04/21/20 04:27 PM
It's a problem. There's plenty of meat being raised, and plenty of vegetables and fruit being grown.
The bottleneck is in agricultural labour -- processing plants and field harvesting. It takes a lot of people to do the work, and they would normally work (and live) in close proximity. And now that's not feasible.
While this labour is low-paying, it's far from unskilled. You can't send in a bunch of unemployed urbanites to fill the gap.
Our supply chains weren't designed to adapt to this kind of event, so there are going to be hiccups. But nobody is going to starve.