The Virus and the Cartels Endanger Food Supply, Which is Worse? - LaRouchePAC Fireside Chat

Published: May 3, 2020, 2:37 p.m.

Diane Sare, LaRouche PAC Manhattan Project; Bob Baker, LaRouche PAC Farm Organizing Director; Jim Benham, National Farmers’ Union, Indiana; Mike Callicrate, Farm Organizer - In tonight’s Fireside, American farmers will provide an updated battle zone report about the impacts of the virus on the nation’s food supply. Processing plants which had been shut by the virus were the topic of an Executive Order by President Trump Tuesday, deeming them essential to the national security, namely to the food supply. On the same day major retailers had warned of meat shortages in grocery stores and there were grim pictures all over the press of farmers euthanizing their herds. The farm sector typifies the predatory practices imperiling humanly essential sectors of the U.S. economy. Big cartels, financed by Wall Street, hedge funds, and foreign “investors” dominate the supply chain seeking the lowest price possible for the farmers’ labor. The cartels’ processing plants employ low wage workers under savage working conditions and were an easy target for the virus. Reorganizing the farm sector, once shown to be capable of feeding the entire world while providing its farmers a living wage, is an imperative coming out of this crisis. And this is urgent. Providing a reliable food supply to nations in the world still targeted by the virus, like the nations of Africa, will determine whether this plague results in a mass genocide.