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> Three percent chance coronavirus will kill us. One hundred percent chance not having any food will kill us. This is beyond hyperbolic. Coronavirus is actuall

> Three percent chance coronavirus will kill us. One hundred percent chance not having any food will kill us. This is beyond hyperbolic. Coronavirus is actually happening. Not having any food isn't, and we're not anywhere close to that point yet, either. If anything, the big food problem right now is that it's piling up in warehouses because we can no longer rely so much on restaurants to buy it up and then throw half of it into the trash anymore. It sucks for Tyson that they can't make their products without bringing humans into too close a contact with each other. But I'm pretty sure that the lines that processes beans and rice doesn't need quite so much direct human involvement, so, as long as the virus doesn't learn how to infect inanimate objects, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to keep eating.

jandrewrogers 7y ago
The supply chain for rice and beans can't double its capacity because we suddenly have a meat shortage, we don't have vast amounts of raw material, logistical, and processing capacity just sitting around. If you need to massively increase the amount of beans in the supply chain, you'll need someone to plant them first and so on.
- Turing_Machine 7y ago
  > The supply chain for rice and beans can't double its capacity because we suddenly have a meat shortage Yes, it takes 3-5 months to bring rice to harvest, assuming you have a suitable climate for growing it in the first place (which most of the United States does not). Beans are more forgiving with respect to climate, but they also take 3-4 months to grow. And, as you say, you can't suddenly turn a meat packing and distribution operation into one for rice. They're different in almost every respect.
throwaway894345 7y ago
What happens when everyone who eats meat switches to rice and beans? The price of rice and beans goes through the roof, and millions of people can no longer afford to eat rice and beans. What do they eat? Further, the food (and other inventory) piling up in warehouses is itself a major problem because it drives up storage costs beyond what those owning the inventory can pay, and those companies go bankrupt. We can sustain some bankruptcy in our supply chains, but at a certain point, it becomes unstable and it cascades. Everything is interconnected.
jankydoodle 7y ago
You're clearly a low IQ individual. I actually do work in supply chain. Your suggestion is that we ought not consider a looming crisis in the food supply chain until it actually becomes a crisis? Have you ever heard of being proactive? This doesn't "suck for Tyson," it sucks for you. You can't just increase the output for bean and rice production to replace lost supply in the poultry, beef, and pork marketplace. By the way, in my area, you can't even find beans or rice. People don't need to actually starve in order to resort to violence. Not being able to find staple foods on the shelves would be enough. Have you ever read a book? Shutting down any food production facility, for any reason other than food contamination, should be an absolutely unacceptable solution, even in the face of a pandemic.
- dang 7y ago
  Yikes, this breaks the rules and posts like this will get you banned here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site to heart, we'd be grateful.

jandrewrogers 7y ago

The supply chain for rice and beans can't double its capacity because we suddenly have a meat shortage, we don't have vast amounts of raw material, logistical, and processing capacity just sitting around. If you need to massively increase the amount of beans in the supply chain, you'll need someone to plant them first and so on.

Turing_Machine 7y ago
> The supply chain for rice and beans can't double its capacity because we suddenly have a meat shortage Yes, it takes 3-5 months to bring rice to harvest, assuming you have a suitable climate for growing it in the first place (which most of the United States does not). Beans are more forgiving with respect to climate, but they also take 3-4 months to grow. And, as you say, you can't suddenly turn a meat packing and distribution operation into one for rice. They're different in almost every respect.

throwaway894345 7y ago

What happens when everyone who eats meat switches to rice and beans? The price of rice and beans goes through the roof, and millions of people can no longer afford to eat rice and beans. What do they eat? Further, the food (and other inventory) piling up in warehouses is itself a major problem because it drives up storage costs beyond what those owning the inventory can pay, and those companies go bankrupt. We can sustain some bankruptcy in our supply chains, but at a certain point, it becomes unstable and it cascades. Everything is interconnected.

jankydoodle 7y ago

You're clearly a low IQ individual. I actually do work in supply chain. Your suggestion is that we ought not consider a looming crisis in the food supply chain until it actually becomes a crisis? Have you ever heard of being proactive? This doesn't "suck for Tyson," it sucks for you. You can't just increase the output for bean and rice production to replace lost supply in the poultry, beef, and pork marketplace. By the way, in my area, you can't even find beans or rice. People don't need to actually starve in order to resort to violence. Not being able to find staple foods on the shelves would be enough. Have you ever read a book? Shutting down any food production facility, for any reason other than food contamination, should be an absolutely unacceptable solution, even in the face of a pandemic.

dang 7y ago
Yikes, this breaks the rules and posts like this will get you banned here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site to heart, we'd be grateful.