Meanwhile, financially beleaguered Americans are lining up at food banks in unprecedented numbers, humanitarian leaders fear a global starvation pandemic is burgeoning, and grocery store shelves are sparsely filled.

So what has gone wrong?

A dramatic dip in demand, weak links in the highly consolidated supply chain, and decades of industry monopolization, experts say.

"A large portion of our food is now produced for restaurants, hotels, schools, and institutional users, about 50 percent. Those markets have effectively closed up, and there is not enough demand for home use now," Dan Glickman, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, told Fox News. "Nor is the supply chain set up for this rapid transformation."

From his purview, the supply chain has become very centralized, especially in meat and poultry.