Description
Food insecurity affected over 17.4 million people in the US before Covid shut down the global food supply chain. Income inequality, tariffs on food imports, climate disasters, the abundance of processed and packaged food further exacerbated food shortages during the shutdown. Distribution of food to supermarkets and grocers was further complicated by restaurant and institutional closures as they buy mega quantities of food not suitable for the individual consumer market.
Seven months into the pandemic, supermarkets are still not completely stocked. This is happening as meats, vegetables and fruits are trashed on a shocking scale. Processing plants, transportation systems and farm workers succumbed to the virus in record numbers further hampering the ability to get food to market.
Our food security prognosis doesn’t look good unless major changes in the global food production system changes. Incorporating new risk factors into food production and changing how and what we eat are some solutions to address this issue.