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The Road from Farm to Table

That’s the title of a new resource I helped pull together for the Purdue College of Agriculture.

I answered questions like:

  • If there’s a surplus at the farm, why is there a shortage in the grocery store?

  • Why would farmers throw away food?

  • Why are meat packing plants shutting down?

  • What are the impacts of packing plant shutdowns for farmers and consumers?

  • Are we going to run out of food?

  • How much of our food comes from abroad?

My colleague, Candace Croney, in the vet school also answered some important question about farm animals in light of recent packing plant closures:

  • Why euthanize the animals instead of just keeping them on farms?

  • Why not wait to see if things improve instead of euthanizing now?

  • How will the animals be euthanized?

You can read the whole thing here.

My colleagues in agricultural communications pulled together a cool graphic to illustrate some of the challenges we are currently seeing in the food supply chain.