COVID-19 and the Case for a National Food Emergency Stockpile
Claire Babineaux-Fontenot , CEO of Feeding America , told National Public Radio ’ s ( NPR ) Morning Edition in April 2020 that food banks were “ seeing as much as a 35 % reduction in that donation stream from retail .”
The challenge of restocking shelves during COVID-19 is not that the nation is out of food . Instead , the challenge is one of a “ misalignment of production and supply ,” in part due to the rapid shuttering of restaurants ( U . S . Department of Agriculture ( USDA ), 2020b ). Before COVID-19 , food consumed away from home constituted 33 % of the average American ’ s daily calorie consumption ( Saksena , et al . 2018 ). Food supplied to restaurants and caterers is packaged in larger , commercial-sized packages , rather than packaged for household distribution . During the early response to COVID-19 , there was abundant food in the U . S . food supply chain , but what was available was largely packaged for wholesale consumption and could not be easily distributed by local FAPs without costly repackaging .
Finally — and perhaps most critically — the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that large-scale national disasters may drive more individuals into food insecurity , while at the same time disrupting food production and supply chains . Moreover , the mere threat of supply chain disruption can trigger panic buying and consumer stockpiling that , in turn , limit the availability of post-consumer food products to FAPs . In April 2020 , one Pennsylvania-based distributor who supplies FAPs noted that , “ the wholesale cost of rice has almost tripled and won ’ t be delivered until June . Canned fruit and vegetables are very hard to get , rice and pasta is challenging , and costs have gone crazy as manufacturers pay more for labor , food
Compound Disasters and Additional Supply Chain Disruptions
COVID-19 has made food insecurity front page news in America . The country may be unable to tolerate additional disasters on top of the existing , ongoing masscare feeding operations . The United States is currently in the middle of the 2020 hurricane season and a western states fire season . In August , as the U . S . was responding to the COVID-19 pandemic , wildfires broke out in California and Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana . The California LNU Lightning Complex fire charred more than 350,000 acres , destroyed more than 900 structures , and forced thousands of people to flee their homes ( Sottile 2020 ). Hurricane Laura , which made landfall in Cameron , Louisiana , as a Category 4 storm , left about 600,000 people without power and over 200,000 people without water ( BBC 2020b ).
The hurricane exacerbated already-existing food insecurity in the region because of food storage vulnerabilities . The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) recommends that after only four hours without power , refrigerated foods ( meat , fish , cut fruits and vegetables , milk , eggs ) be either discarded or placed in another cooling source such as an insulated container with dry ice
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