OPINION:
A farmer in Minnesota told the Star Tribune he had to kill 61,000 of his chickens because the coronavirus crisis had dried up demand for their eggs and he had no way to continue feeding them.
Open the freaking country already.
For PETA’s sake (see what I did there?), open it now.
Seriously, though: “The sudden drop in demand for food at restaurants, school cafeterias and caterers shut down by the pandemic has ripped through farming. Milk has been dumped, eggs smashed and ripe lettuce plowed under,” the StarTribune reported.
And now, chickens have been euthanized. Tens of thousands of chickens — admittedly, chickens that would’ve been killed anyway, just not until fall — but tens of thousands of the birds now euthanized. All on account of the coronavirus.
“[Egg farmer Kerry] Mergen said he initially couldn’t believe it when a field manager from Daybreak Foods, the Lake Mills, Wis.-based firm that owned and paid to feed the flock of 61,000 birds, said they might be killed early,” the newspaper wrote. “His contract called for the flock to produce eggs until fall.”
But the nation’s egg plants aren’t selling like the normally do — on account of the coronavirus.
And grocery stores aren’t selling eggs like they normally do — on account of the coronavirus.
So the trickle down outcome is that the cost to keep the chickens alive is not worth it.
Egg farmers across the region are seeing their chickens face similar fates.
And the travesty isn’t just the ungodly waste. It’s the economic hits to farmers leading to the ravaging of the whole farming industry — one of the foundations of a free society. A country that makes it own food is a country that’s free.
A country that relies on foreign nations for its food supplies is vulnerable.
That’s just Basic Freedom 101.
And this destruction of chickens — along with other recent reports of dumped milk and destroyed crops — should sound the alarm on America’s politicians to open the country for business, and open it but quick.
It’s one thing to go without toilet paper. It’s another thing entirely to go without food.
America must maintain self-sufficiency with the food supply, if Americans are to remain free.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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