There seems to be a huge disconnect between what’s available in grocery stores and what’s happening on many farms across the country. It’s a paradox: grocery stores are running out of milk, but dairy farmers are dumping milk because there is nowhere for the normal supply to go due to widespread school, cafeteria, and restaurant closures. What can we make of all this? Is there too much food? Not enough food? Does our food supply system need an overhaul?

Today we’re joined by Tom Philpott, food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones, to untangle what COVID-19 is doing to the U.S. food supply and what changes we might see looking forward.

Tom Philpott is the food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones. He is the author of the forthcoming book Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Cover photo by nrd on Unsplash