Food waste is an immense issue across the U.S. and other countries. According to estimates, as much as 40% of food is wasted in America, per the USDA. Knowing this, it makes us wonder why we have hundreds of thousands of people in the country who can’t afford to eat. As a California woman watched trucks actively throw away produce, she had some questions. She pointed out that we actively do these things every day in America, and yet we’re in a food crisis.
Mary (@artmusicmaryjane) posted a TikTok video captioned “America’s food crisis.” In the video, you can see enormous piles of oranges in a field on the side of the road. Though some look rotted, most of them look completely edible and bursting with orange color. Mary said that people wonder why food is so expensive for so many Americans to afford these days. She pans her camera around the field of oranges and states, “Here it is, on the side of the road. Free oranges.”
Mary pans to a large dump truck that’s dumping the oranges on the side of the road. As the food spills out of the back, it kind of breaks my heart a little. When Mary pans to a new perspective, we see that she went and rescued a handful of the oranges and is eating them inside her vehicle. At least somebody put a couple of them to good use, and hopefully some other people driving by as well. Knowing that a bag of oranges can be as much as $8 where I live and more in other areas, it is concerning to see so much waste.
Dumping large amounts of produce is not something new for farmers. At times, they’re instructed to do so due to low market prices, oversupply, and many other reasons. But, as one commenter pointed out, “And the government pays the farmers to do this they call it price fixing.” Another commenter said, “Reminds me reading when they used to dump produce and kill livestock to manipulate prices during the Great Depression.” So, even if your government says it’s necessary, this doesn’t automatically mean that it’s right.
Another commenter stated, “Capitalism doesn’t grow food to feed people. It grows it to make a profit.” We could do a lot for our unhoused population in America if we could spread a little extra food from one area to the next. However, it takes money to do so. Everything in America comes at a price.
