How directly does states opening have to do with the food chain? To my knowledge most of the food chain has remained intact throughout the stay at home orders. Some aspects have not, for instance some smaller segments of crops were lost, but I thought, by and large, it has all been humming along. The appalling aspect is how some have gotten sick at work, in food chain environments, and the government wants to block the employer from having any liability in the circumstance. No, it is not employer's fault covid exists, but have the employer's been requiring masks at work? If not they should not be able to escape all responsibilities.

@Flowerwall millions of chickens are being slaughtered & buried right now.
Meat-packing plants, despite being very high risk, have to be reopened or millions of cattle will be slaughtered as well...nobody is going to pay for feed for animals they cannot make money off of.
Drump has suspended green cards indefinitely. Who do you think is going to harvest millions of pounds of crops... you?

@AnneWimsey When I think of harvest it's in the fall. So, in my mind that would mean getting these rates down NOW, so we aren't still slip sliding through the grips of this in fall. True, harvest is different in different places. But with so many Americans out of work, we ourselves need and can do the work. We have no guarantee Mexico will have a grip on it's own pandemic woes given Obrador's previous response and we cannot afford to import more viruses from other nations. We need to incentivize this work and not allow people to just overlook it because they are already recipients of unemployment. It is in everyone's best interest to get this work done.

Maybe the government can assign unemployment recipients to nearest food producers in need of harvesters and make it a requirement for continued benefits, while only counting a certain portion of the wage.

I am aware of the situation with the meat stuff and find it all abhorrent.

@Flowerwall if you ever gardened, "harvest" is year-round in some climates, Spring is especially good for lettuce, radish, and other cold-weather crops in northern climates. But most of our produce here in New England, for at least 2/3 of the year, comes from places like Chile, or maybe California. Do you think they can store lettuce for distribution 6 months from now?
Your idea that making unemployed harvest things shows a complete lack of understanding of how back breaking, intensive, & poorly paid the work is....do you think they work an 8-hour day & go home at night?
And even if stuff got harvested, who is going to drive the trucks eand/or unload the ships? A SERIOUS food crisis is coming soon......

@AnneWimsey I do know the work is back breaking. There is also pesticide exposure that the worker's can experience, but we can't just throw our hands up and give up, can we? Maybe by us ourselves doing the work it will open our eyes a little more to what it's all about.

I never suggested lettuce could be stored for that long a period of time. Certain aspects of food production will be effected, for certain. Some aspects won't.

@Flowerwall lettuce was an example...Very few produce items can be stored for long periods.
Have you noticed there is Still no toilet paper? When has that ever happened before.....??!?
Stock up on non-perishable & canned goods!

@AnneWimsey Well I agree stocking up on certain items is a good call. Overall I think most items will remain in stock and some will be hard to find or get very pricey. Hopefully, info in this link is mainly true.
[usda.gov]

When there is no food on the shelves, what are you going to say?

@AnneWimsey I think this provides us with the opportunity for a real dialogue about (1) who is an essential worker, and (2) what those jobs ought to pay.

It does appear that is what they are doing. Don’t vote repub, you die.....

I agree glenn