Good post!
A close relative of mine works for Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (federal department) and she's been telling me about her office sending farmers in Canada more money than usual in the last 3 or 4 years.
Apparently some farmers are being incentivized to NOT farm. I have no proof other than her stories but she has no reason to lie or anything.
Last year, I saw an amateur video of hundreds of healthy chicken being killed (at a farm not far from Ottawa) because the processing plant was closed - due to covid - and no one was able to process the birds.
In the video, the farmer was also complaining that these plants have been getting shut down for no good reason for years which meant that all the animals in the province were being processed in only 1 or 2 plants. This obviously caused all sorts of problems and being forced to shut down because of some "pandemic" made it worse...
All of that to say, I think you're on to something here.
Think of the effect lower farm yields will have on livestock. Seems like smaller, decentralized slaughter houses might be a business opportunity.
I know some farms are subsidized by the government, I just don't know the details of those deals. You can bet though the government will screw everything up.