Abstract
International food trade is an integral part of the food system, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of external food supplies. Based on the perspective of cereals trade networks (CTN), the pandemic risk is combined with the trade intensity between countries, and an assessment model of cereals external supply risk is constructed that includes external dependence index (EDI), import concentration, and risk of COVID-19 from import countries index (RICI). The results show that: (1) the global main CTN have typical scale-free characteristics, and seven communities are detected under the influence of the core countries; (2) about 60%, 50%, and 70% of countries face risks of medium and above (high and very high) external dependence, concentration of imports, and COVID-19 in the country of origin, respectively. Under the influence of the pandemic, the risk of global external cereal supply index (RECSI) has increased by 65%, and the USA-CAN communities show the highest risk index; (3) the countries with a very high risk are mainly the Pacific island countries and the Latin American and African countries. In addition, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and 80% of the net food-importing developing countries are at high or very high RECSI levels. Approximately 50% of countries belong to the compound risk type, and many export countries belong to the RICI risk type; (4) global external food supply is subjected to multiple potential threats such as trade interruption, “price crisis”, and “payment dilemma”. The geographical proximity of community members and the geographical proximity of the pandemic risk is superimposed, increasing the regional risk of external food supply; and (5) this study confirms that the food-exporting countries should avoid the adoption of food export restriction measures and can prevent potential external supply risks from the dimensions of maintaining global food liquidity and promoting diversification of import sources. We believe that our assessment model of cereals external supply risk comprises a useful method for investigations regarding the international CTN or global food crisis under the background of the pandemic.
Highlights
Maintaining and improving food security is one of the major global challenges in the 21st century [1]
This study starts from the perspective of a complex network, uses FAOSTAT global data on main cereals from 2016 to 2018, and identifies the core nodes for the stable operation of the cereals trade networks (CTN) based on the complex network method, and analyzes the main cereals flow pattern and interdependence
Based on the trade perspective, a global external supply risk assessment model was built that includes the risk factors such as the risk of COVID-19 from import countries index (RICI), and the global, community, and country-level changes in external supply risk, and the types of dominated risks affected by the pandemic were analyzed
Summary
Maintaining and improving food security is one of the major global challenges in the 21st century [1]. The COVID-19 pandemic (hereinafter “the pandemic”) has exposed the fragility of the global food supply and raised the specter of the global food crisis [2]. The epidemic’s (e.g., SARS, Ebola) potential damage to the future global food system 4.0/). Has been confirmed in previous global, regional, and local food crises [3], and the negative impact of the pandemic has spread to four dimensions of food security, including availability, access, use, and stability [4]. Relevant research is mainly focused on the food supply chain [6], nutrition, and health [7,8]. Research is mainly performed for low-income food-deficit countries or countries with large food production, such as the countries in sub-Saharan
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