Americans are hungry and food prices are soaring, but this is most certainly not because of a shortage of available meat and produce.

In fact, while one-in-four Americans has had to file for unemployment benefits as a result of the pandemic, and cars line up for miles to get to food banks, farmers are plowing under healthy crops, euthanizing animals, destroying fresh produce, smashing eggs and dumping milk.

Meanwhile, governmental organizations are warning that another pandemic is looming on the horizon: global starvation.

How is this even possible? How can people be going to bed hungry while desperate farmers are forced to destroy perfectly good food?

The reasons are complicated, but supply chain issues caused first by panic buying and then by thousands of workers becoming ill with the coronavirus, low demand as people lose their jobs, and decades of industry monopolization, have collided to create the crisis we are now dealing with. (Related: Huge increase in food demand due to coronavirus sends wholesale egg prices skyrocketing 180%.)

A large contributing issue is the fact that for the first time in decades Americans are eating virtually all their meals at home.