Food supply chain: a house of cards

At the time of writing this column, truckers in Canada were protesting that country’s vaccine mandates. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had recently made it a requirement for truckers crossing into Canada from the US to prove they were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or quarantine upon return to Canada. These truckers have been blocking traffic on the Ambassador Bridge, a major trading route between the US and Canada. The protest is already threatening retailers’ stocks of fresh produce and other food items, such as cereal, which is leading to an increase in the prices of these commodities. According to Michelle Wasylyshen, national spokesperson for the Retail Council of Canada, around 25% of “all food and consumer products, as well as packaging and ingredients, are [transported] by trucks across the Ambassador Bridge […]”.

Such a phenomenon is a possibility anywhere in the world; in South Africa, the July 2021 riots in KwaZulu-Natal, which had an impact on the production and transportation of food to affected areas, saw grocery shelves in these areas run bare. A blockade of a major highway here would lead to similarly disrupted access to food. Furthermore, poor road infrastructure in this country is a looming threat to the food supply chain, as much of our food is transported via roads. Anyone living in provinces such as the Free State is well aware of the effects that poor road quality is having on food transportation to and from these parts of the country.

The COVID-19 pandemic and related trade lockdowns have been severe in terms of their impact on food supply systems. Port blockages and container shortages, as a result of subdued demand during lockdowns followed by a sudden uptick thereof, have led to shortages of many commodities across the world. Moreover, these shortages have seen inflation rise in many countries, with more and more people unable to afford food as the cost of living continues to rise. This is also a problem in South Africa, with inflation having increased steadily over the past few months. While this is also related to soaring fuel and farming input prices, food supply chains are directly affected by such changes in the market.

As the Canadian truckers’ protest shows, slight disruptions to the system can lead to catastrophic results that may take years to repair. All the while, farmers and others along the food value chain, as well as consumers, suffer the consequences.

Perhaps this is a call for society to move further away from major retailers to buy their fresh produce and other food commodities directly from farmers, and in this way cut out some of the reliance they have on supply chain networks. Of course, not all things can be bought directly from farmers, but fresh produce and animal products and by-products are often readily available for purchase off farms. Farmers’ markets may also be less severely affected by supply chain problems, with farmers often delivering directly to these markets. This partly removes the middleman in terms of securing food supply for a family.

The long-term solution, however, is stability. Protests, such as those in Canada, are a result of social-economic pressure, amongst other problems, but are rarely the result of food-related issues. Ensuring political and economic security will result in fewer high-impact protests and indirect (or direct) attacks on the food supply chain.