Food Safety Economics in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sylvain Charlebois,Trevor Vandertuin

doi:10.5539/jfr.v10n4p1

Abstract

The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis for both food safety and especially the economic sustainability of food production in Canada and around the globe are explored. A full analysis is made of the nature of the virus, and it is spread as they relate to the forces of globalization which have created a global food supply chain, with a focus on the weaknesses of a global supply chain that fell prey to the COVID-19 virus and its associated economic effects. Comparison was made to past outbreaks of Spanish flu and Ebola, both of which challenged public health, food safety, and food supply systems. A more focused analysis examines how public and private responses to the pandemic create opportunities and challenges for several linkages in the supply chain, including farms, food processing facilities, grocery stores and restaurants. The quarantine procedures put in place around the world to manage the COVID-19 necessitated radical shifts in food production and. Ultimately the response from any individual government is insufficient to weather these events, as the fundamentally international and cross-industry factors involved require a holistic, globally coordinated approach which was not possible with the tools available before these events began.

Highlights

At the tail end of 2019, a virus began to spread from Wuhan, China outward into the surrounding area
A full analysis is made of the nature of the virus, and it is spread as they relate to the forces of globalization which have created a global food supply chain, with a focus on the weaknesses of a global supply chain that fell prey to the COVID-19 virus and its associated economic effects
Businesspeople, and innumerable other travellers, the virus which came to be known as COVID-19 was spread throughout China, but throughout the entire world, triggering a pandemic on a scale unheard of since the Spanish flu outbreak which occurred in the wake of the end of the First World War (Mallapaty, 2021)

Summary

Introduction

At the tail end of 2019, a virus began to spread from Wuhan, China outward into the surrounding area. This paper, written during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, will provide an in-depth account of the impacts of the outbreak on food through an examination of the origins of the outbreak, its effects on all food-related industries, the health risks at the intersection of the virus and food, and the structural vulnerabilities in the global food distribution system which allowed this outbreak to have such a devastating effect (Curtis et al, 2014) It will present an analysis considering the consequences of COVID-19 for vulnerable populations around the world and within the North American context as they relate to food from an intersectional perspective, with reference made to historical effects on food safety and availability for such populations during comparable crises (Goddard, 2020; Thilmany et al, 2021). Given the ongoing nature of the situation, the analysis, and recommendations here cannot necessarily be assumed to describe the complete scope of the situation

Historical Context

Pandemic Origins

Supply Chain Impacts

Findings

Conclusion