American's are becoming aware of the fact that this quarantine has severely disrupted the food chain.
A lot of us were shocked a few weeks ago to see videos of farmers dumping thousands of gallons of milk. The Dairy Farmers of America report that farmers are now dumping between 2.7 and 3.7 million gallons of milk per day! The Wall Street Journal reports that farmers are destroying their own crops rather than pay to have them harvested only to sit there and rot as restaurants are only ordering a fraction of what they did pre quarantine.
Ryan Cranney, CEO of Cranney Farms, says he was in the same predicament but had an idea. "We would just let people come and take the potatoes!" Cranney started posting about the free potatoes on Facebook, telling folks to come grab as many as they want, and now some people are driving hours to get them for themselves, as well as friends and family. And food banks and soup kitchens are showing up, too.
“The response has completely blown me away,” Cranney says. “It’s been fun for me to see people thinking of others and give their time and resources to take care of other people.” He estimates that they have now given away around two-million potatoes!