Fears around food shortages grow with the continued destruction of food processing facilities and the spread of the avian flu virus throughout North America. .Within the month of May alone, at least five new reports of more food plants catching fire have surfaced. .Late Saturday night, a commercial egg farm in Minnesota caught fire killing tens of thousands of chickens, as reported by Fox News. The Forsman Farms facility in Wright County suffered significant damage from the fire which nearly destoyed its main building..It's estimated more than 200,000 chickens were in the building when it caught fire and investigators are still working to determine the cause of the blaze. .Also on Saturday, fire crews from several counties in Pennsylvania responded to a fire at a chicken house in northwest Berks. The cause of the fire has not been released, as reported by Reading Eagle. .Last Wednesday, an explosion and fire was reported at a 100-year-old grain silo in Prosser, Wash. destroying the silo and quickly spread to its neighbouring feed and supply store, M & E Seed and Grain, as reported by NBC local affiliate KNDO 23 KNDU 25. One employee was injured in the fire. .In Canada, London, On. firefighters responded to an involved fire at a Cargill chicken processing plant on May 23. Crews fought heavy flames and heavy smoke through the morning until the blaze was under control, as reported by WATTPoultry.com. Although the fire caused significant damage to the plant, no injuries were reported and the cause is still under investigation. .On May 1, two chicken houses caught fire in Jones County, Miss. Both houses were complete engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived and the roof had already collaped, as reported by CBS affiliate WHLT. .In late April, The Western Standard published an exclusive story on how food shortages were being magnified by a string of destroyed food processing facilities across North America. Nearly two dozen facilities were destroyed in Canada and the US in just more than a year, according to several verified reports included in the story. .Within days, a follow up exclusive revealed the destruction of food processing facilities is, in fact, a global phenomenon, with dozens more incidents popping up around the globe in the last two years. .On the heels of two new fires in early May, fact-checkers were out to dispute the claims these food plants were deliberately being destroyed. One of the fires was reported at Perdue Farms in Chesapeake, Va.; the other was at a food processing plant in Fresno, Calif. .Rebublican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to Twitter on May 9 to express her concerns over food shortages, rising fuel prices and sky-high inflation. In the tweet, she insinuated she does not believe the destruction of food facilities are "random" in nature. ."High inflation and fuel prices are making it very difficult for farmers to afford to farm and feed their stock," Taylor Greene wrote in the tweet. ."Cattle farmers are getting hit hard and may go out of business." ."Combined with a lot of supposedly random fires at food processing plants, our food supplies are in trouble.".Fires at food processing facilities, coupled with the spreading avian flu cases in Canada and the US have people on edge as fears of food shortages and soaring costs of food grow..As of May 19, the Western Standard reported Canada has seen the death of nearly two-million birds due to the recent outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu. ."We've been hit by bird flu before in Canada, but never to this magnitude and never in multiple provinces simultaneously," said Jean-Michel Lauren, president and CEO of Canadian Poultry & Egg Processors Canada.."But we tend to have a lot more farms that are smaller in size, which makes for a more resilient supply chain than the United States.".According to the Canada Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), an estimated 1,822,500 birds in Canada were impacted by the disease as of May 19. Infected flocks have been destroyed and the carcasses disposed of in an "environmentally acceptable way." .The US has seen more than 37 million chickens and turkeys killed due to the virus, as reported by Bloomberg in early May. .North American Affairs Manager at the Consumer Choice Centre (CCC), David Clement, told the Western Standard in an earlier interview, any "disruption to the food industry and the food processing industry will create a ripple effect." .“Anything that affects product availability will put upward pressure on food inflation. This is why Canada and the US are seeing skyrocketing prices,” he said. .The cost of food has jumped dramatically over the last year. In April, Canadian consumer prices rose 6.8% year over year, and drove the cost of food up 9.7% compared to April 2021. This is the largest increase Canadians have seen in the cost of food since September 1981..The federal government blames Russia's invasion of Ukraine, poor weather in growing regions and rising costs to growers including fuel and fertilizer costs as the main contributors to the rising cost of food in Canada.
