The sharp decline in demand for food, especially in the restaurant industry, has caused farms to destroy millions of pounds in fresh produce. The immense waste will have dire consequences for the agricultural sector. Additionally, farmers do not know how much to plant for the next harvest season due to the uncertainty in how long this crisis will last. This phenomenon has chilling parallels to scenes from the Great Depression, when farmers aired PSAs of themselves dumping milk because no one had money to buy it.
On another note, right-winged pundits and politicians such as Devin Nunes have advocated for the rapid repealing of social distancing policies on the basis that more people could die of famine in the resulting economic fallout than from the coronavirus. However, the main issue is a contraction of demand, not supply. People should not starve to death while vast quantities of food are destroyed. If the situation becomes more dire, the government could intervene to effectively distribute the agricultural surplus and prevent a famine.