I think the US is going to learn why it’s dangerous to centralize food supply. Most of the local farmers in my region (upstate ny) are bankrupt, and much of our production or processing of food is from far away. The half and half from my grocer is processed in Virginia.
A big chunk of US rail traffic demand over the last decade has been oil, which was already dropping as pipeline construction caught up with demand under the new administration's pipeline policies.
(Tangent: For those not familiar, check out Buffet's meeting/deal with Obama admin re: pipeline policy after Berkshire picked up UP stock for cheap.)
The railroads enjoyed a virtual monopoly on additional oil transport capacity for years, but I suspect the latest drop in oil demand might signal the last element needed to completely end that era.
If true, then they might see a slight/temp bump in rail demand in a few months as petroleum storage fills up, when tanker cars are repositioned as a last resort storage option for over-supply.
Point being, the abrupt drop in rail traffic likely has more to do with the drop in oil demand than grain or any other rail transported product.
Which you could still ultimately blame on covid, but it's not necessarily representative of a collapse in multiple markets. Just oil trimming the excess.
At least where I come from, most local farmers can't "go bankrupt" as they are family businesses and have very low operating costs - worst case is sitting idle at home.
Then there's "family farming", where you have a fleet of GPS-and-climate-control-equipped John Deere's on finance and invest heavily in automated irrigation and sell to wholesalers who provide to national chains.
The former are probably fine. The latter, who provide food for the country, are generally running on huge credit lines with payments to meet and in uncertain times like this can (and regularly do) very quickly go bankrupt.
Agriculture is considered essential infrastructure in the US and not stopped. Except they can't get immigrant labor but that is a problem for the small vegetable farmers who don't need or buy the expensive equipment anyway.
Between trade policies (Canadian onion farmers, for example, are importing subsidized onions for 25% of the production cost) and the federal government no longer enforcing anti-trust law (groups of grocery wholesalers are now colluding to set prices via reverse auctions) this is one of the most bleak periods for farmers in the last century.
Other operations are like tenant farmers. Chicken producers are a great example of that. They basically own risk.
Many businesses operate on the edge or need lines of credit that may or may not continue to exist.
The exception is rich hobby farmers who have no need to make a profit and some specialty crops.
I had naively assumed (in the US) that agriculture and rail would be considered essential industries and continue as usual? Is this all due to migrant labor issues?
As our muscles atrophy, basal metabolic rates will decrease too.
Undetermined what kind of hit to population COVID will cause, but I'm estimating <1%.
Maybe in the west, but not the case in China, food is relatively expensive, so very little is wasted, even poisonous rice can find snack factory buyers. Restaurant waste is colleted by small pig farms.
RE: China, last I read, China is nominally food secure - produce enough calories to feed everyone domestically on basic staples. There's also massive waste and spoilage in the supply chain. I don't predict a famine, or 5 missing meals to revolution, but shortage of luxury items is probably expected.
That said, global food supply shortage/shock due to everyone adjusting to COVID is definitely "the cure is worse than the disease" scenario.