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Ed Webb

Coronavirus and food supply: Visa bottleneck raises labor concerns - Los Angeles Times - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...s-agriculture-food-supply-visa

pandemics food labor US USA California foodsecurity security

shared by Ed Webb on 19 Mar 20 - Cached
  • California’s nearly $50-billion agricultural industry is bracing for a potential labor shortfall that could hinder efforts to maintain the nation’s fresh food supply amid the widening coronavirus outbreak.The immediate concern centers on a backlog in the recruitment of foreign guest workers because of the virus-related shutdown of consul offices processing agricultural H2-A visas in Mexico.
  • fears highlight a gap in the Trump administration’s market-centered approach to keeping vital industries running, which includes numerous measures aimed at supporting aid, credit and the major commodity crops in the nation’s heartland. There has been little done to address the labor-intensive fresh food crops that form the backbone of California agriculture.
  • Assurance from USDA and State were not enough to satisfy growers, shippers and contractors in California, who have been pressing for more clear answers as the scope of the pandemic comes into focus. The state has faced years of labor shortages caused by the aging of the local workforce, immigration crackdowns, improvements in job prospects in Mexico and other factors.“We don’t have enough H-2A workers coming across in normal times,”
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  • “A halt or a drastic slowdown in processing visas will have an immediate domino effect of the domestic food supply of this country,” said David Scaroni, vice president of Fresh Harvest, the country’s largest private contractor of H-2A workers. “No emergency declaration or short term provision will change this fact.”
  • “We believe because of what’s planted and what’s going to be harvested that we can meet the demand and maintain the continuity of the food supply,” Valadez said. “The question is the labor equation. The crops are going to be there. But what are we going to be able to do to get the crops out of the ground?”
  • labor contracting surges dramatically as produce shifts from the winter desert regions of California and Arizona and gets underway along the central coast. That region hosts the bulk of the state’s strawberry production and much of its spring and summer leafy greens, broccoli and cauliflower, among other crops.
  • Any shortfall or slowdown, however, would have a cascade effect across production, harvest, processing and distribution within weeks, Scaroni said. “Plants already in the ground do not know that there is a pandemic occurring. It is crucial to keep this process going as close to the prior normal to ensure a stable food supply for the coming months.”
  • deep, short-term dependency within crops and harvest areas
  • There is no evidence that contact with produce is contributing to the spread of coronavirus, federal health and safety agencies have said.
  • “Historically, farmworkers are so used to not having healthcare they just put up with being sick,” said Armando Elenes, secretary-treasurer of the United Farm Workers. “They’re going to go to work, and on the way to work, they’ll be in a car with four, five or six workers. So ‘social distancing’? Forget that.”
  • An agriculture industry source said operations dependent on food-service clients could suffer irreparable economic harm. The inability of the retail side to absorb the unused supply could leave a paradox of empty bins in grocery stores while food rots in the fields.
  • Rabobank Research predicts that effects of the pandemic will last several months. It already has affected parts of the food economy few think about, such as the boxes it’s packed in — cardboard production largely halted in China in January and February, driving up prices.
  • Wholesalers report that unusually heavy rains have created an “extreme” market for many produce items, including carrots, peppers, squash, potatoes and cauliflower. California’s citrus industry has had to slow or pause harvest during the prolonged rains of the last week, according to California Citrus Mutual. The industry had hoped to overcome most of the supply imbalances as it shifted production north and into additional states. Then the pandemic hit.
Ed Webb

Covid crisis is fuelling food price rises for world's poorest | Food security | The Gua... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...price-rises-for-worlds-poorest

opinion worldbank food foodsecurity pandemics pandemic climate hunger

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Feb 21 - Cached
  • While the health and economic impacts of the pandemic have been devastating, the rise in hunger has been one of its most tangible symptoms.Income losses have translated into less money in people’s pockets to buy food while market and supply disruptions due to movement restrictions have created local shortages and higher prices, especially for perishable food. This reduced access to nutritious food will have negative impacts on the health and cognitive development of Covid-era children for years to come.
  • Global food prices, as measured by a World Bank food price index, rose 14% last year
  • We need to remain vigilant and avoid backsliding into export restrictions and hardened borders that make food – and other essentials – scarce or more costly
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  • In a review of Covid-19 social response programmes, cash transfer programmes were found to be: Short-term in their duration – lasting just over three months on average Small in value – an average of $6 (£4.30) per capita in low-income countries Limited in scope – with many in need remaining uncovered
  • The world’s food systems endured numerous shocks in 2020, from economic impacts on producers and consumers to desert locust swarms and erratic weather. All indicators suggest that this may be the new normal. The ecosystems we rely on for water, air and food supply are under threat. Zoonotic diseases are on the rise owing to growing demographic and economic pressures on land, animals and wildlife.
  • A warming planet is contributing to costlier and more frequent extreme weather events. And as people pack into low-quality housing in urban slums or vulnerable coastal areas, more are living in the path of disease and climate disaster.
  • We need sustained financing for approaches that prioritise human, animal and planetary health; restore landscapes and diversify crops to improve nutrition; reduce food loss and waste; strengthen agricultural value chains to create jobs and recover lost incomes; and deploy effective climate-smart agriculture techniques on a much greater scale.
  • Focusing on food security would address a basic injustice: almost one in 10 people live in chronic hunger in an age of food waste and plenty. This focus would also strengthen our collective ability to weather the next storm, flood, drought, or pandemic – with safe and nutritious food for all.
Ed Webb

Drought may have doomed this ancient empire - a warning for today's climate crisis - Th... - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...climate-change-drought-history

history archaeology Turkey ancient climate agriculture drought foodsecurity

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Feb 23 - No Cached
  • A new analysis published Wednesday in the journal Nature shows that the Hittites endured three consecutive years of extreme drought right around the time that the empire fell. Such severe water shortages may have doomed the massive farms at the heart of the Hittite economy, leading to famine, economic turmoil and ultimately political upheaval, researchers say.
  • n accumulating field of research linking the fall of civilizations to abrupt shifts in Earth’s climate. In the ruins of ancient Egypt, Stone Age China, the Roman Empire, Indigenous American cities and countless other locations, experts have uncovered evidence of how floods, droughts and famines can alter the course of human history, pushing societies to die out or transform.
  • It underscores the peril of increasingly frequent and severe climate disasters. But it also points to strategies that might make communities more resilient: cultivating diverse economies, minimizing environmental impacts, developing cities in more sustainable ways.
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  • “Things like climate change, earthquakes, drought — they are of course realities of our lives,” Durusu-Tanrıöver said. “But there are human actions that can be taken to foresee what will happen and behave accordingly.
  • In the half-century leading up to empire’s collapse, the scientists found, the rings inside the tree trunks gradually start to get narrower — suggesting that water shortages were limiting the junipers’ growth. Chemical analyses of the kind of carbon captured in the wood also showed how drought altered the trees at the cellular level.
  • cuneiform tablets from that time in which Hittite officials fretted over rising food prices and asked for grain to be sent to their cities. But Manning said the empire — which was known for its elaborate water infrastructure projects and massive grain silos in major cities — should have been able to survive this “low frequency” drought.
  • between 1198 and 1196 B.C., the region was struck by three of the driest years in the entire 1,000-year-long tree ring record. The abrupt spurt of intensely dry weather may have been more than the Hittites could bear. Within a generation, the empire had dissolved.
  • “Very few societies ever plan for more than one or two disasters happening consecutively.”
  • “But I think it’s naive to believe that three years of drought would bring down the storerooms of the Hittite empire,” Weiss said. He argues that the longer-term drying trend, which has been documented in other studies, was probably more significant.
  • “What’s a crisis for some becomes almost an opportunity for others,” Manning said. “You have adaptation and resilience in the form of new states and new economies emerging.”
  • Durusu-Tanrıöver blames an unsustainable economy and centralized political system. The intensive agricultural practices required to support the capital city probably exhausted the region’s water resources and weakened surrounding ecosystems
  • parallels to modern urban areas, which are both major sources of planet-warming pollution and especially vulnerable to climate change impacts like extreme heat.
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