Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Trump Order to Keep Meat Packing Plants Open (apnews.com)
13 points by crocodiletears on April 28, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments


Honestly, this is the kind of stuff that freaks me out. Even if you don't eat a lot of meat - the last thing we need right now is food to start disappearing off of shelves. And this is likely just the squeakiest wheel of a tenuous food supply chain.

I've heard that this summer's produce harvest is going to be a massacre - the migrant workers farms rely on won't show up. And if they do, the temporary housing available is incredibly dangerous.


The silver lining is that most of the more fragile and complex food products are "luxury" products, relatively-speaking. The farming of grains and the like is heavily automated at this point; I don't think we need to worry about actual starvation.


I've seen plenty of references to the food industry facing significant issues, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know how large, small, or sustainable these problems actually are.

An interesting article: https://www.thestreet.com/.amp-phildavis/phildavis/news/why-...


Processing the carcass after the animal has been killed is very labour intensive and you need to have the skill and the demeanor for that kind of job.

You are not going to send in the national guard to man these plants if the workers get sick or walk off the job.


This article is short on explaining the consequences. What steps will be taken to prevent virus from spreading at the facilities, people from getting sick and, as a result, ending up dead? I really hope that this doesn't boil down to "Trump ordering people to die for the meat industry".


What does the language in this order actually accomplish?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: