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Commentary: What's wrong with this picture?
9:12 AM EDT, Fri April 10, 2020
Millions are out of work, many are starving, and farmers are dumping and throwing away unsold crops. (U.S. News reports, one of many such news items, that "Tomatoes are left on the vine to rot in fields south of Miami.)
And yet food isn't considered a 'security' item.
Don't believe it? Consider some NYT headlines of 4/10/20, "Good Friday":
· "16,780,000 Americans have lost their jobs. It took 21 days."
· "Efforts by U.S. to Halt Economic Damage Can't Keep Pace."
· "Benefits Claims Far Outpace Those of Great Recession."
· "Workers Who Feed the U.S. Fear Their Lives Are Being Put at Risk."
So many tragedies are unfolding all at once it's hard to keep track of them. And this is not in the U.S. alone; it's all across the world.
Dealing with all these huge problems is both an individual concern and a governmental one. All can surely help. But are we, and they?
Not yet, in any appreciable way, it doesn't seem. In a piece about growers' troubles today in that same newspaper, read this disastrous remark: "So these small farmers, like many others across the country who spent decades building a local, sustainable agricultural system, are staring at their fields and wondering what to do now that the table has been kicked out from under the modern farm-to-table movement. It's navigation with no compass," one said.
Somebody's got to come to the rescue. Cue Jose Andres.
Don't know him?
Most recently he appeared on the PBS News Hour on April 9th, talking about his World Central Kitchen (WCK).
Its mission: "A hot plate of food when it's need most." Last year WCK "was activated in response to 13 disasters, some of them natural, and some man-made. From serving children in the shelters on our border with Mexico to those keeping watch over beaches in Indonesia…WCK is also at work in Puerto Rico with its Plow to Plate program, and in Haiti, aspiring chefs are obtaining the skill and confidence to elevate their careers…" (For more information on the World Central Kitchen, go to its website, or ring up 202-844-6330.
But get this straight. This isn't a commercial for WCK, good organization that it seems to be.
As someone who has reached a certain age, I'm asking these questions: "What can I do?" And "Where the hell is our government, especially the feeble and disjointed leadership of the White House?"
Is nobody in authority home to this fear, hunger and agony of our people? Where's FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for example? How about our governors and local governments paying attention?
How to cope with this pressing emergency? Think of food as a weapon in war. Growing food can be like the production of missiles or battleships. If nobody built the latter, we'd be lost in a hurry.
So, who's thinking about purchasing food being destroyed by farmers because they have no buyers?
How much of a stretch would it be for governments to hire restaurants to use these farmers' crops and make them available to the poor?
As Easter approaches, I think we know what people of good will think about this.
Michael D. Langan is the NBC-2.com Culture Critic. He served in Republican and Democratic administrations for 15 years. Dr. Langan has written for the BBC, The Dublin Review of Books, and numerous U. S. publications.
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