People stand in 4 km-long queue for food in South Africa amid coronavirus pandemic

Amid coronavirus lockdown in South Africa, thousands of people queued for food parcels amid lockdown in Centurion on Wednesday.

Drone footage showed thousands standing in the queue that stretched for 4 kilometres.

South Africa has spent five weeks under coronavirus restrictions requiring most of the population to stay at home apart from essential trips, leaving many businesses and individuals struggling without income in the recession-hit economy.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

The strict lockdown has left many South African kitchens empty and has forced people to defy social distancing rules and the situation has come down to if coronavirus does not kill, then hunger definitely will.

Today, food scarcity is as much a reality as food wastage. The pandemic has forced countries to close their borders and as a result of the isolation, in one part of the world, people are hungry while in another food is being wasted.

In the United States, coronavirus lockdown has left markets ravaged forcing millions of farmers to destroy their own produce.

There are no trucks to ferry farm produce to the cities and due to the demand collapse, farmers aren't left with much choice but to destroy their perishable stock.

Across the Atlantic, Belgian farmers are sitting on a massive pile of potatoes.

Belgium is the world's largest exporter of fries but today, the country has no takers for its frozen products; 125 million euros of income is at stake.

And to avoid food wastage citizens in Belgium are being asked to eat more fries.

"We know that Belgian like their fries, it's intangible heritage, our frying culture. So we ask the Belgians to consume an extra portion of fries now, to allow us to process more potatoes and to avoid food waste," said Romain Cools, Secretary-General of potato industry group Belpom recently.