There have been huge amounts of food wastage in America as farmers are forced to dump goods that were meant to be exported. In Wisconsin, Idaho, and much of the MidWest, you can find giant ditches where millions of pounds of onions and potatoes have been buried. Manure pits and isolated lagoons can be seen full of dumped milk.
Indeed, farmers lost most of their costumer base when restaurants and other food distributors closed. Still, this waste points to the problem with long supply chains, and the dependency created on exporting to a future, or 'hypothetical' consumer.
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-destroying-food.html
https://abcnews.go.com/US/dairy-farmers-dumping-milk-amid-covid-19-pandemics/story?id=70268302
The excess food waste is also harmful to our environment. Excess food waste produces methane gas while rotting. The potent greenhouse gas is approximately 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2) at raising the Earth's temperature. [1]
In addition to the impact on the environment, food waste during the pandemic is hindering humanitarian operations to alleviate food shortage in other regions. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) stated that the pandemic has further escalated the food crisis. Movement restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are disrupting the food supply chain and hindering humanitarian operations. [2]
At the G20 meeting on April 21 of 2020, the FAO Director General Qu Dongyu urged the agriculture ministers to strengthen local production and shorten supply chains: "Preserving access to safe food and nutrition is an essential part of the health response" [3]. Shortening the supply chain while strengthening local agriculture would not only benefit regions in food crisis and result in more food security. The shorter supply chains also mean less shipping is involved for the food to reach the customer and in turn, a lower carbon footprint.
Read more:
[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/methane/
[2] http://www.fao.org/3/ca8497en/ca8497en.pdf
[3] http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1272077/icode/