operations management

This weeks discussion is forecasting, more specifically the current forecasting issues farmers are experiencing due to the pandemic. Well use this article as a basis for our discussion. Ive highlighted some excerpts from the article below. 

Read the following and answer the questions presented. Remember: Your initial post must be a minimum of 250 words with two sources (one can be your textbook). You must respond to two of your peers. 
In early July, South Carolina farmer Jeremy Storey dropped off an order of eggs at a restaurants back door as planned and continued on his way. But 6 hours later, he got a call that the eggs were never collected the restaurant had suddenly closed because a staff member tested positive for Covid-19, and nobody canceled the order. After half a day in the hot sun, the eggs could no longer be eaten.  Half the restaurants were going to now, we find out upon delivering to them that theyre closed, he said. Hes now sitting on a surplus of about 24,000 eggs, with no idea when, or if, things will stabilize.
The unpredictability is a major problem for farmers. If they cant forecast what demand for eggs (and other products) will look like tomorrow, much less months out, they run the risk of overproducing which would leave them with expensive surpluses or underproducing, which would prevent them from having enough product on hand to meet demand.
Now, just as restaurants began to resume dine-in service, a new surge of coronavirus cases has paused reopening plans and put farmers back in limbo and made it even more difficult to forecast. 
 
Uncertainty is really whats causing the problem, said a union exec. Theres no end in sight. That makes it really hard to plan for the future. If the uncertainty drags out for another year or two, he said, some farms and restaurants will go out of business. It also means that some restaurants that make it through this dark period wont have a steady source of supply at the other end.
 
Questions:
 
1   Should demand during the pandemic be excluded from future time-series forecasts?
2.  With so much uncertainty, is it better to raise or lower production for the next agricultural cycle?
 
Weiner-Bronner, D. (July 26, 020). A nightmare scenario for farmers is happening right now. CNN Business. Retrieved from 

Please post one response to the above questioins, then respond to at least two of your peers.