Hvordan COVID-19 påvirker landmænd og fødevareforsyningskæden

Tomme hylder langs supermarkeder, landmænd, der dumper mælk og forlader marker med afgrøder, restauranter, der afskediger personale – det amerikanske madlandskab har ændret sig dramatisk på kun en måned, takket være rådgivning om ophold i hjemmet og social distancering i en alder af COVID-19.

Men hvordan påvirkes fødevareforsyningskæden og dens arbejdere? Hvilke fødevarer er nu mindre tilgængelige for hvilke mennesker, og hvad kan vi forvente fremadrettet?

Vi har endnu ikke alle svarene, ifølge Timothy Griffin, William Masters, og Jennifer Hashley fra Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. COVID-19-krisen udspiller sig stadig, forbrugere og fødevaresystemaktører tilpasser sig stadig, og vækstsæsonen mange steder har endnu ikke ramt fuld gang.

Men COVID-19 har bestemt gjort opmærksom på svaghederne og ulighederne i vores fødevaresystem – og på behovet, og muligheden, at henvende sig til dem, de tre eksperter var enige.

Ændring af foderpladser

Vi kan starte med at erkende det grundlæggende skift i den måde, amerikanere spiser på, sagde professor Tim Griffin, afdelingsformand for landbruget, Mad, og miljø på Friedman-skolen, hvis klasser dækker landbrugsvidenskab og -politik og fødevaresystemet. "Før, omkring halvdelen af ​​madudgifterne i USA var, hvad vi kalder væk fra hjemmet - restauranter, cafeen tæt på arbejde, den slags spillesteder, " sagde Griffin. "Det tal er meget mindre nu, hvilket betyder, at folk er nødt til at købe mad og lave det derhjemme."

I stedet for 50/50, opdelingen er mere som 90/10 i øjeblikket, Griffin vurderede. "Og systemet forsøger at reagere på det, For nu kommer efterspørgslen fra en anden retning - nu kommer den stort set gennem konventionelle dagligvarebutikker, " han sagde.

Dagligvarebutikker reagerede ret hurtigt, ifølge Griffin - efter indledende mangel på varer som kylling og pasta, genopbygningen holder nu trit med efterspørgslen i de fleste tilfælde. Professor William Masters, som underviser i fødevareøkonomi på Friedman-skolen, sagde, at det afspejler en styrke ved systemet.

"Vores fødevareforsyning er bemærkelsesværdigt robust, netop fordi vores kilder til mad er geografisk spredt. Vi har ikke været afhængige af mad fra kun ét sted, " sagde Masters. "Vores madsystem er ikke som en kæde - det er som et net. Vi kan have fejl ét sted, men resten af ​​netværket udfylder det. Risikoen er, når en hel aktivitetskategori fejler, såsom samtidige udbrud på kødpakkerier i forskellige stater, eller grænselukninger og udbrud, der forhindrer migrantarbejdere i at høste frugt og grøntsager mange steder."

Den største og vigtigste sektor, der er berørt af denne krise, er foodserviceindustrien, Mestre påpegede, tegner sig for størstedelen af ​​de job, der er mistet til dato. Omkring tretten millioner job inden for madservice og gæstfrihed er i fare, når kunder holder sig væk fra kontorcafeterier og universitetsspisesale, restauranter og cafeer, hvoraf mange måske aldrig genåbner. "De forsøger at holde arbejdere beskæftiget og at være en del af løsningen og sørge for, at folk har mad, " sagde Griffin. "Men salget er afgrundsdybt, og mange restauranter er i krisetilstand."

Da restauranter og institutioner lukker ned, virksomheder opstrøms i fødevareforsyningssystemet, såsom kødpaknings- og mejeriforarbejdningsanlæg, har kæmpet for at skifte fra bulklevering til madservice til dagligvaresektoren. Når forbrugernes indkomst falder, landmænd har set dramatiske fald i priserne for husdyr og dyrefoder, mens råvarepriserne for basisvarer som hvede er faldet mindre.

"Dette er det største tab af indkomst i menneskehedens historie, i form af en enkelt hændelse med én identificerbar årsag, der sætter en pludselig stopper for fysiske interaktioner, " sagde Mestre. Og som med andre former for kriser, det rammer hårdest blandt dem med mindst evne til at vende tilbage. "The lost jobs are disproportionately in food and other retail services that have become the main employers for people without a college degree, " Masters said. "It's precisely the vulnerable and most at-risk people who are most hurt by this disease, both directly in terms of exposure and severity of illness, and also indirectly through loss of income."

Uncertainty and opportunity for small farmers

Winners and losers are emerging among small farmers, også, said Jennifer Hashley, director of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project. An initiative of the Friedman School, New Entry aims to improve local and regional food systems by training farmers to produce sustainable, nutritious, culturally preferred, and widely accessible food.

"Farmers with a lot of storage crops, and things like value-added dairy products—like yogurt and cheese—that they can produce year-round, if they have the opportunity to sell directly to consumers, are seeing a huge increase in demand, " Hashley said, noting that Codman Community Farm's own frozen meats (where Hashley and her husband, Pete Lowy operate a pasture-based livestock operation outside of Boston) are selling out—unheard of this early in the year. "But all this is really challenging to those who don't have the technological savvy or delivery infrastructure to go from dropping multiple boxes and pallets of food off at institutions, to selling to one consumer at a time."

Farmers are hesitating about whether they should start planting and how much, Hashley said. Will interest in local and regional food climb now that people are cooking more at home and seeking alternatives to overrun grocery stores, and should farmers try to ride that wave? Or will people come out of social distancing and go straight back to their previous habits of eating out? There are no answers yet, Hashley said, but one thing is for sure. "People need food and they need farmers, " she said. "We're telling farmers to get on the ground and grow."

Many farmers are making forays into home delivery, considering contactless delivery and drive-by pick-up options for individual buyers, and looking into online ordering and collaborative delivery models, in which many small producers aggregate their products and distribute them together, according to Hashley. Derudover farmers' markets have been deemed essential businesses in Massachusetts and other states, Hashley said, and will be another channel to get produce where it's needed—though these markets will have to open with strict social distancing restrictions and may look very different.

Hashley urged people to support their local producers by investing in community supported agriculture (CSA) shares. "Small local and regional farms maintain biodiversity and soil health. We're going to need that to withstand future shocks from climate change, pandemier, and everything else, " Hashley said. "If we continue to move toward a globalized, industrialized food system that's prone to interruptions when this kind of thing happens, that's not sustainable in the long term. A lot of people are now trying to figure out how we emerge from this crisis and build from this in a way that honors and supports local and regional producers."

Moving forward with uncertainty

As we move into the growing season, we'll get a better picture of how social distancing affects consumers' behavior and how food system players respond to the shift in demand, according to Griffin. He predicted that crops with mechanized production, like corn, tomatoes, and some other fruits and vegetables, will continue to be widely available. But crops that rely on human labor, like strawberries, will be more subject to disruption.

With farm laborers getting sick or fearing to work in close quarters with others, supplies of these crops could dwindle, which could cause prices to rise. It's a troubling possibility, according to Griffin. "Those are the things we think of as being really important in a nutritious diet, " he said. "You want to have those foods available even if it's a really stressful time and people are getting sick." We are also seeing problem accelerate in the livestock sector, especially at the processing plants, han tilføjede, which could lead to meat shortages and price bumps down the road.

The discussion of failures in our food system has been going on for a long time, but now we're being forced to reckon with them, Griffin said. "Sustainability in the food system often gets framed as just greenhouse gas emissions, but it's also about how you treat people and animals, " Griffin said. "And all the disparities and inequities we have in our food system are just made much, much worse by the experience we're going through now, " Griffin said.

It's hard to predict how our food system will continue to react, Griffin said. But one thing is for sure—the conversation needs to shift soon from the weaknesses of the food system to the road forward. "Everyone is in crisis mode, but at some point, we're going to have to talk about solutions, " Griffin said. "The goal at this point is how to make sure everyone and especially the most vulnerable populations have access to healthy food."