The year 2020 changed not only this country but the entire world. COVID-19, a dangerous cousin to the common flu, emerged in the East in late 2019. It took only a few months for it to spread across the world due to open borders and ease of international travel. Not since the 1918 Spanish flu have we seen a disease of this magnitude, devastating entire communities and overcrowding hospitals in mere days. On March 19, 2020, the World Health Organization of the United Nations elevated this epidemic to a true, global pandemic. While medical authorities and researchers worked on treatments and a viable vaccine, the majority of the population was told to shelter in place and self-quarantine to prevent the hospital surges that our medical industry couldn’t handle. Most businesses temporarily shut their doors due to these restrictions, but some industries were deemed “critical” and were not allowed that option.
The food and agriculture industry was one of the 16 industries that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency deemed critical and excused from these “stay at home” mandates. Our industry didn’t have the luxury of waiting it out: We had to go back to work and keep America fed. Thanks to the tireless work of our medical industry and advances in communication technology, most of the world’s infrastructure was able to persevere through the darkest days.