The U.S. food supply has taken a hit over the last few years due to supply chain issues caused by the war in Ukraine, COVID-19 and avian influenza. Many products have had huge price increases while other products have not been available at all.
In recent weeks, a decent number of conspiracy theorists on social media are claiming that the industry’s supply issues were planned by the government. Widely shared social media posts suggest the fires were started by the government on purpose to induce a food shortage, even though many of the cases have been confirmed to be accidents.
After a quick internet search, you can find thousands of users posting phrases like “pay attention,” “wake up America” and “the government wants to control us.” The phrases are usually accompanied with a list of the farms and processing plants that have suffered a fire in 2022.
Charlie Kirk, conservative activist, posted on Twitter, “Food processing plants don’t just “accidentally” burn down at this rate, and they certainly don’t “coincidentally” become landing pads for plane crashes at the rate they are. Our food supply is under attack in America. The question is—by who?”
Some theorists suggest that Bill Gates is deliberately setting the fires at farms and processing plants to fulfill the World Economic Forum’s initiative titled "The Great Reset." However, the same initiative has been manipulated to support other conspiracy theories as well.
I think the logical claim is, most Americans have no idea what the frequency of farm and facility fires is in the first place. The lack of awareness makes it easy to create panic over the situation.
In reality, barn fires have been a continuous problem for the poultry and egg industries.
I could argue that the average American citizen only started paying attention to farm and facility fire incidents after their favorite foods went up in price. I feel like we should be focused on diagnosing the cause of these fires and preventing them from happening in the first place. Let’s talk to the EHS managers.
