How Covid-19 is Exposing Weaknesses in Our Food Systems

FEATURING RAJ PATEL – As Americans adjust to life under quarantine, the daily battle to stockpile enough food has led to serious shortages of staples and a dramatic shift in the way we buy food. While there are shortages of milk in supermarkets, elsewhere there are reports of dairy farmers being forced to dump thousands of gallons of milk. Food shortages are existing at the same time as there is excess food production, exposing the weaknesses of our globalized food systems.

Meanwhile workers in the food chain, from migrant farm workers to truckers, grocery store employees and delivery drivers, are risking their lives for meager salaries, no paid sick leave, and poor job security to feed us all.

Raj Patel, award winning writer, activist, and academic, a research professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and a senior research associate at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University. He has written several books including Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy, and A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature and the Future of the Planet.