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Global Resonance of Food Security
“We must keep critical food supply chains operating, so people have access to life-sustaining food”, says a study by the Global Network Against Food Crises, stressing the urgency of maintaining the delivery of humanitarian assistance “to keep people in crisis fed and alive.”
Interventions in support of food security, nutrition, and agricultural livelihoods address not only the symptoms of food crises but their root causes.
Signs of Disconnect
COVID-19 quickly demonstrated the shortcomings in our food system. Food destroyed at its source.
“The closing of restaurants, hotels, and schools has left some farmers with no buyers for more than half their crops. A single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week,” reported David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Corkery, Food Waste of the Pandemic, New York Times, April 11, 2020.
Demand is Destroyed
“The novel coronavirus pandemic has destroyed demand for seafood across a complicated U.S. supply chain, from luxury items such as lobster and crab, generally consumed at restaurants, to grocery staples sourced from the world’s fish farms,” reported Laura Reiley, Commercial Fishing in Free Fall, Washington Post, April 8, 2020. “Now, with restaurants closed, many of the nation’s fisheries — across geography, species, gear types, and management — have reported sales slumps as high as 95 percent.”
Essential Workers Fall Ill
“518 employees at a Smithfield Foods processing plant in South Dakota and 126 of their close contacts contracted coronavirus,” reported Evie Fordham, Coronavirus cases tied to giant South Dakota pork-processing plant surpass 500, Fox Business, April 15, 2020. A critical part of food infrastructure, the pork processing plant closed indefinitely. Other meat processing plants have also closed temporarily because of outbreaks of the coronavirus.
Food Banks Overwhelmed
In its response to COVID-19, Congress did not expand food stamp benefits. “Food banks across the country are struggling to meet ever-increasing demand as the millions of workers made jobless by the economic impact of coronavirus try to feed their families,” reported Peter Wade, Food Banks Are Overwhelmed and It’s Congress’ Fault, Billboard, April 11, 2020. “They’ve never had to execute on this scale before.”
Empty Shelves
The breadth of contradictions in the outward signs of food distribution is worrisome and confusing. “To prepare for future disasters we might want to encourage food companies to have five or six food processing plants scattered around the countryside, rather than one giant regional plant,” reported Nathanael Johnson, Coronavirus myth-busting: The truth about empty shelves and toilet paper shortages, Grist.org, April 8, 2020. To move forward, we must plan for resiliency.
