The Implications of COVID-19 on Global Food Waste 

According to the Department of Agriculture, 30-40% of food in the US is wasted, a figure that is likely much higher due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All over the world, the pandemic has been taking a heavy toll on farmers and their crops. As businesses close and consumer needs shift, farmers are left with more food than they can sell, which has resulted in a drastic increase in food waste, all while more and more people are seeking food assistance due to financial and unemployment issues brought on by the pandemic. And unfortunately, an unprecedented amount of food is being wasted even before making it into grocery stores. 

 

Many farmers have resorted to dumping millions of gallons of milk, turning their vegetables into mulch, and plowing over crops, while more people than ever line up at food pantries seeking assistance across the country because so many universities, schools, and restaurants that normally purchase large quantities of food from them have closed. 

 

According to reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, in addition to dumping milk, eggs have been tossed and some rice crops reploughed back into their fields. 

 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, farmers are dumping approximately 14 million liters of milk every day. And according to the New York Times, one farmer was forced to use a chicken processor to destroy 650,000 unhatched eggs a week and another onion farmer is letting most of his harvest decompose because he is unable to distribute or store them. 

 

Food waste is certainly not new to the food industry, as even before the pandemic, up to 40% of the food in the U.S. is wasted. However, exacerbation of this issue due to the ongoing pandemic has illuminated the flaws present in our food supply chains. The number of people across the globe experiencing food insecurity and acute hunger could double by the end of the year, while farmers and producers deal with massive surpluses. How could this be?  

 

Usually, farmers’ biggest buyers are restaurants, universities, and stadiums in the food service industry, but strict social distancing mandates have forced many of these places to scale or shut down their operations, which has put a heavy strain on farmers and food producers. For instance, John Umhoefer of the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association was quoted saying that “the food service sector accounts for half of all the cheese sold in the US, while only one-third is sold at grocery stores.” Big buyers, like Disney and cruise lines, purchase a critical amount of produce grown in Florida. America’s normal food system functioned under the assumption that the food service industry would be purchasing the bulk of farmers’ goods, unaware that the pandemic would radically change this sense of normalcy. 

 

Without these big buyers, more food is going to waste. In some cases, this is because farmers cannot shoulder the cost to harvest and find new buyers for their food. Field workers are also increasingly harder to come by as heightened border security aimed to mitigate the spread of the virus impacts the availability of migrant workers, the backbone of the food industry. According to the Guardian, “billions of dollars worth of food is going to waste” in California as farmers face a “massive surplus of highly perishable items.” Kara Heckert, California regional director for the American Farmland Trust claimed that this crisis is “having a disproportionate effect on warm-weather states and smaller farms.” 

 

In order to cut their losses, some restaurants are buying large quantities of ingredients such as yeast and flour, and then bagging it up to sell to customers. Additionally, some farms have resorted to selling directly to consumers in CSA boxes, but this supply chain is still leaving out the food pantries. To address this gap, California’s Department of Food and Agriculture is providing financial assistance to ease the burden on farmers wishing to donate their surplus produce. 

 

The economic impact of the pandemic has been sending a record-breaking number of Americans to food banks, but it has been difficult for these food pantries to keep their shelves stocked. Under normal circumstances, these pantries are filled with non-perishable items, but shelf-stable goods have been selling out in grocery stores and food pantries depend primarily on receiving goods from grocery stores that aren’t able to sell well. Fortunately, an influx of produce from farmers, diverted from its usual food service destinations, has helped cover this dip in donations from grocery stores. 

 

The unprecedented amount of food waste caused by the spread of the coronavirus is not only occurring at a tragic time when many people are going hungry, but is also an environmental hazard that likely is contributing to global warming. Landfill gas - roughly half methane and half carbon dioxide - is a natural byproduct of the decomposition of organic material. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is 28 to 36 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period. Thus, the sudden influx in food waste should be of great environmental concern, especially given many of the unusual changes in climate and natural disasters in many parts of the world.