The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the myriad vulnerabilities and inequities of United States food and agricultural systems—all while making them more acute. Food insecurity existed, but now millions of children, home-bound with unemployed parents, cannot access nourishing foods; the number of hungry children alone could rise from 50% to 18 million (Feeding America 2020). Millions flock to food donations, waiting in line for hours for meager free boxes of canned goods. Food banks ration meager allotments. And this is just the beginning: unemployment skyrockets to 15%, though analysts estimate far higher total, once part-time, gig, and residual job losses get calculated. Vast unemployment numbers unfold rapidly around the world (Rothwell and Van Drie 2020). Meanwhile, the crisis rages on the producer side as well. Again, lingering injustices—farmworker exploitation, agrarian inviability, egregious monopolies—are all laid bare, and sharpened. Amidst the painful contradictions of collapsing farms and surging demand for local foods emerges the logistical conundrums of vulnerable supply chains. Farmers plow acres of crops into the soil, while millions of chickens and hogs are “depopulated”—but not for food. Rather, industrial meat plants lacks the labor to process, transport, and package animals for consumption. Agri-food scholars have traced how long and concentrated food supply chains have grown, under the ‘food from nowhere’ neoliberal agri-food paradigm. Long overlooked and obscured, they are designed to be invisible, with places, people, and labors unseen, unconsidered, and unvalued. The pandemic however lays them bare. The very materiality of farm and food labor conditions—the cramped lodging and transport, the lack of drinking water or washing stations—erupts from its prior invisibility into public glare. Major pork slaughterhouses have become deadly hotspots of contagion for those laboring inside them—and their families and communities. Over a dozen major meat plants have closed in less than two months, upending the whole, highly concentrated meat supply chain nationally. The points of extreme exploitation, festering behind “ag-gag” laws, become points of disproportionate exposure and viralcontraction for those with the least resources and healthcare access. Agricultural industries have long deployed the law to hide rather than expose abuses. The hypocrisy of migrant farmworkers’ “illegal” yet “essential” status exemplifies this: ICE agents continuing to make arrests, even in areas hit hardest by pandemic (Alianza 2020). Amidst compounded risks and fears, migrant workers cannot seek medical, legal help or escape from work-related or domestic abuse or gender-based violence. Relatedly, detention centers have become notorious breeding grounds, like prisons, for contagion and fatal contraction. Agriculture has long been the overlooked push and pull factor for mass migrations: from agrarian crisis and rural depopulation from commodity crop dumping (Murphy and Hansen-Kuhn 2019) to global scrounging for low-wage, skilled (though deliberately not labeled as such) farm labor. In the corporate chokehold on agriculture, it is also the farmers, rancher, and fishers who lose—and COVID-19 exacerbates it. Commodity farmers, in the sixth year of record-low prices, face heightened debt and foreclosures. Dairy farming faces outright collapse, with milk futures plummeting. Black, indigenous, Latinx, immigrant, female, beginner, small-, and medium-scale producers face even steeper odds, with less access to credit, land, extension, markets, and the billions in aid flowing from the USDA. Here agricultural policy serves as problem and potential, enabler and lifeline. The USDA has promised $23 Billion in agricultural assistance, but it remains dangerously nebulous. Aid applications for are convoluted, bureaucratic, inaccessible. Thus far, The funding does not support producers providing food for local, regional supply chains, farmers markets, schools, This article is part of the TopicalCollection: Agriculture, Food & Covid-19.

中文翻译：

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重新定位粮食种植政策以滋养社区

COVID-19 大流行暴露了美国粮食和农业系统的无数脆弱性和不公平现象，同时使它们更加严重。存在粮食不安全状况，但现在数百万儿童与失业的父母呆在家里，无法获得营养食品；仅饥饿儿童的数量就可能从 50% 增加到 1800 万（Feeding America 2020）。数以百万计的人涌向食物捐赠，排队等候数小时，以获取少量免费的罐头食品。食品银行配给微薄的拨款。而这仅仅是个开始：失业率飙升至 15%，尽管分析人士估计，一旦计算出兼职、零工和剩余工作损失，失业率会高得多。大量失业数字在世界范围内迅速展开（Rothwell 和 Van Drie 2020）。与此同时，危机也在生产者方面肆虐。再次，挥之不去的不公正现象——农民工剥削、农业不可行、严重的垄断——都暴露无遗，而且更加尖锐。在农场倒闭和对当地食品需求激增的痛苦矛盾中，脆弱的供应链出现了物流难题。农民将数英亩的农作物耕种到土壤中，而数百万只鸡和猪却“人口减少”——但不是为了食物。相反，工业肉类工厂缺乏加工、运输和包装动物以供食用的劳动力。农业食品学者追踪了在“无处可食”的新自由主义农业食品范式下，食品供应链的增长时间和集中度。长期以来，它们被忽视和模糊，它们被设计成看不见的，地方、人和劳动是看不见、不考虑和不重视的。然而，大流行使它们暴露无遗。农场和食品劳动条件的重要性——狭窄的住宿和交通，缺乏饮用水或清洗站——从其先前在公众视线中的隐身中爆发出来。大型猪肉屠宰场已成为在其中工作的人及其家人和社区的致命传染病热点。在不到两个月的时间里，十几家大型肉类加工厂已经关闭，颠覆了全国高度集中的整个肉类供应链。极端剥削点，在“ag-gag”法律背后溃烂，成为那些资源和医疗保健服务最少的人不成比例的暴露点和病毒收缩点。长期以来，农业行业一直在使用法律来隐藏而不是揭露滥用行为。农民工“非法”但“基本”身份的虚伪体现了这一点：ICE 特工继续进行逮捕，即使是在受疫情影响最严重的地区（Alianza 2020）。在复杂的风险和恐惧中，移民工人无法寻求医疗、法律帮助或逃避与工作有关的虐待或家庭虐待或基于性别的暴力。与此相关的是，拘留中心已成为臭名昭著的滋生地，就像监狱一样，是传染病和致命性收缩的温床。长期以来，农业一直是大规模移民被忽视的推动和拉动因素：从农业危机和农村人口减少，商品作物倾销（Murphy 和 Hansen-Kuhn 2019）到全球寻找低工资、熟练（尽管故意不被贴上标签）农场劳动。在企业对农业的扼杀中，输掉的也是农民、牧场主和渔民——而 COVID-19 加剧了这种情况。商品农，在价格创历史新低的第六年，面临更高的债务和止赎。奶牛养殖面临彻底崩溃，牛奶期货暴跌。黑人、土著、拉丁裔、移民、女性、初学者、中小型生产者面临更大的困难，他们获得信贷、土地、推广、市场和来自美国农业部的数十亿美元援助的机会更少。在这里，农业政策是问题和潜力、推动者和生命线。美国农业部承诺提供 230 亿美元的农业援助，但它仍然非常模糊。援助申请是复杂的、官僚的、难以获得的。到目前为止，该资金不支持为当地、区域供应链、农贸市场、学校提供食品的生产者，本文是 TopicalCollection：农业、食品和 Covid-19 的一部分。黑人、土著、拉丁裔、移民、女性、初学者、中小型生产者面临更大的困难，他们获得信贷、土地、推广、市场和来自美国农业部的数十亿美元援助的机会更少。在这里，农业政策是问题和潜力、推动者和生命线。美国农业部承诺提供 230 亿美元的农业援助，但它仍然非常模糊。援助申请是复杂的、官僚的、难以获得的。到目前为止，该资金不支持为当地、区域供应链、农贸市场、学校提供食品的生产者，本文是 TopicalCollection：农业、食品和 Covid-19 的一部分。黑人、土著、拉丁裔、移民、女性、初学者、中小型生产者面临更大的困难，他们获得信贷、土地、推广、市场和来自美国农业部的数十亿美元援助的机会更少。在这里，农业政策是问题和潜力、推动者和生命线。美国农业部承诺提供 230 亿美元的农业援助，但它仍然非常模糊。援助申请是复杂的、官僚的、难以获得的。到目前为止，该资金不支持为当地、区域供应链、农贸市场、学校提供食品的生产者，本文是 TopicalCollection：农业、食品和 Covid-19 的一部分。以及来自美国农业部的数十亿美元援助。在这里，农业政策是问题和潜力、推动者和生命线。美国农业部承诺提供 230 亿美元的农业援助，但它仍然非常模糊。援助申请是复杂的、官僚的、难以获得的。到目前为止，该资金不支持为当地、区域供应链、农贸市场、学校提供食品的生产者，本文是 TopicalCollection：农业、食品和 Covid-19 的一部分。以及来自美国农业部的数十亿美元援助。在这里，农业政策是问题和潜力、推动者和生命线。美国农业部承诺提供 230 亿美元的农业援助，但它仍然非常模糊。援助申请是复杂的、官僚的、难以获得的。到目前为止，该资金不支持为当地、区域供应链、农贸市场、学校提供食品的生产者，本文是 TopicalCollection：农业、食品和 Covid-19 的一部分。