Beef And Pork Prices Rose More Than 20% Since February
With restaurants and event venues closed, demand for meat has skyrocketed in grocery stores. Prices have shot up as well. Overall, Americans spent 4.5% more on groceries in June than they did in February. The price of doughnuts, coffee cakes, and other sweet baked goods increased 4.2%, while shelf stable seafood prices rose 4.6%. The cost of peanut butter went up 7.9%, and ham prices increased 8.7%. As for meat, fresh pork prices rose 19.9% and beef and veal prices increased by 22.2% and counting, according to market analysts 24/7 Wall St. and data from The Bureau of Labor Statistics. Rising food prices have largely been pinned on supply chain issues as demand for retail products grew dramatically when nationwide lockdowns began. Economic troubles among farmers and closures at meatpacking facilities have also hampered supply of some products.
Food Shortages? Soaring Prices? Economist Stats Say Otherwise
Catherine Kling, an economics professor at Cornell University, said “I’ll bet I’ve been to 50 talks in the last five, 10 years where the beginning is, ‘We have to feed 9 billion people by 2050. This is a crisis situation.’ The word ‘crisis’ gets used regularly.” But the numbers tell a different story. Tom Hertel, an economist at Purdue University, says it’s true that from 1900 to 2000, the number of people on earth grew four times in size; however, by the end of the century, food prices has dropped by one-third. On the whole, food has been getting cheaper and cheaper around the world. Hertel and Kling claim that poverty, war and political oppression are what make people go hungry, not food shortages. So why do forecasters and lawmakers keep harping about potential food shortages? “Part of the reason may be it’s an effective communication device,” says Kling. She says that farmers and lobbyists may claim the world needs more food so that governments don’t enforce environmental regulations that may reduce overall farm output. Hertel asserts that scientists too have a reason to exaggerate or overstate food shortage risks: it helps raise money for agricultural research. “The issue is not, can we produce enough food,” says Hertel, “It is, can we produce enough food in a way that doesn’t destroy the environment.”
Food Banks Pushed To The Brink As Food Insecurity Rises
The Brooklyn social services provider Camba Inc. served more than 18,000 people last month, almost five times as many as in February. It’s a small example of how the pandemic has caused demand at food banks to skyrocket due to millions of Americans being out of work. According to hunger-relief organization Feeding America, which operates 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs across the country, an additional 17 million people will become unable to meet their family’s food needs this year. To meet rising demand, relief organizations across the country are testing new distribution strategies, employing temporary labor, and scrambling to find larger storage facilities.
According to a June survey by Feeding America, over 82% of U.S. food banks are helping more people now than last year, at an average increase of 50%. Food banks rely on surplus food from grocery stores, manufacturers, farmers, and government agencies. However, due to consumer stockpiling, shelf-stable products have been in low supply since March, straining food-relief efforts that rely on these products. Food banks have been forced to compete with each other for canned goods, in many cases purchasing the items themselves.
Global Coffee Consumption Plummets With Stay-At-Home Orders
Coffee consumption worldwide is set to fall this year for the first time since 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Stay-at-home orders have cratered sales at coffee shops, as 95% of the out-of-home market shuttered, according to industry researcher Marex Spectron. “It will be a slow and staggered comeback for us as a lot of the offices in London are not coming back on until after summer, and some may even open only next year,” said Robert Robinson, co-founder of London coffee chain Notes. In Brazil, low demand at Suplicy Cafes Especiais, one of the country’s largest chains, forced the company to reschedule payments to farmers for shipments already delivered. International coffee giants Dunkin’ and Starbucks have struggled to mitigate the loss of commuter traffic with increased drive-thru and pickup sales, but low demand worldwide is already taking a toll on coffee’s market value. The value of arabica beans is predicted to drop by roughly 10% in the second half of 2020 to about 90 cents a pound, according to Citigroup Inc.
Global Meat Consumption To Increase Post-Pandemic, Says United Nations
Global meat consumption will grow by 12% in the coming decade with lower-cost poultry accounting for half the increase, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In “Agricultural Outlook,” a joint report with Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD), the FAO predicts that poultry consumption worldwide will rise by 145 tons by 2029 and that aquaculture will surpass capture fisheries by 2024 as the top source of fish. Low feed costs for poultry and livestock will make these ventures more attractive to farmers, according to the report, and consumers in middle-income countries will continue to supplement traditional diets with more meat as it becomes affordable.
In developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa, meat consumption will rise five times faster than in developed nations, according to the joint report, as consumers in developed nations seek meat alternatives. “Environmental and health concerns in high-income countries are expected to support a transition away from animal-based protein toward alternative sources, as well as more immediate substitution away from red meat, notably beef, toward poultry and fish,” said the report. Although meat consumption is predicted to eventually rise, The OECD-FAO estimates that global meat consumption fell by 2% in 2019 with China experiencing at least a 21% drop in pork consumption due to the outbreak of African swine flu epidemic.
How the Pandemic May Strengthen the U.S. Food System
The pandemic has exposed several weaknesses in the U.S. food supply chain. When restaurants, stadiums, and schools closed, commercial growers could not quickly or easily repackage huge amounts of product for retail sale. At the same time, surging consumer demand at grocery stores outpaced the production capabilities of retail food packagers. The upside has been that smaller regional growers and wholesalers who had already been diversifying their products and sales channels began to fill the gap with direct-to-consumer sales both online and at local and regional farmstands. Farms such as G. Flores Produce and J & L Green Farm in Virginia were well-positioned to bring a variety of produce, meat, and dairy directly to consumers. Tom McDougall, owner of 4P, a food distributor in Virginia, began stepping up his distribution of products from farms such as G. Flores to restaurants, stores, and individual consumers. “Wouldn’t it be amazing,” asks McDougall, “if we came out of the other end of [COVID-19] with a more equitable, distributed, and resilient food system?”
While large-scale commercial farms have an inherent ability to reach more consumers more efficiently, the decentralized nature of more regional agriculture systems allows growers and distributors like G. Flores and 4P to respond more quickly to shifts in supply and demand, which could ultimately strengthen the food system and help eliminate food shortages. Groups such as the Mid-Atlantic Food Resilience and Access Coalition are already matching producers with buyers, creating what they call “community feeding networks” to reach consumers, institutions, and food banks, and to help keep farmers solvent. It remains to be seen how regional food systems and larger commercial agricultural systems will work together to solve potential food shortages, but the pandemic has already created unique alliances that may ultimately decrease food insecurity across the country.
Maine Lobster Prices Drop Amid Lockdowns And Trade War
Closed restaurants, a lack of tourists, and the U.S.-China trade war have battered Maine’s lobster industry. With meager sales and a surplus of lobsters, consumer prices have fallen to less than $6 a pound from about $8-$9 a pound at the same time last year. According to state government data, lobster fishers were paid an average of $4.82 a pound for their haul last year, while this year the going price is just $2 to $3 a pound.
The Maine lobster industry hit peak sales in 2016 with 132 million pounds caught valued at $540 million, according to state data. But in 2017, 2018, and 2019, the industry has sold less than $500 million worth each year. China’s retaliatory tariffs on American lobster have also taken a toll on wholesale exports in the past year. In 2019, Maine lobster exports to China fell by 48%. Last month, at a rare meeting in Bangor, Maine’s fishers outlined the dire state of the industry to President Trump, and in response he directed the U.S. Agriculture Department to funnel some of its federal farming aid to the Maine lobster industry to keep it from sinking. .
Massive Pig Farms Return To Chinese Suburbs To Increase Production
China, the world’s biggest pork consumer, suffered huge production losses in the wake of the 2018 swine fever outbreak. To meet continued demand this year, the country is planning on adding 200 million pigs to its annual production by building farms near cities around the country, particularly near Beijing. The government had relocated many similar suburban farms between 2015 and 2017 to stem the tide of runoff contaminating nearby water and soil. But demand is so high that the government deems the return of suburban pig farms as the best option.
Zu Sheng, owner of Sifanghong Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, is constructing one of 11 farms in Beijing’s suburbs. The site will eventually raise 60,000 pigs a year and is located in Pinggu about 43 miles from the city center. Another Pinggu pork company, New Hope Liuhe, also anticipates a multi-story farm that will raise 150,000 pigs annually. An additional six farms are being revamped and expanded, according to the Beijing municipal government.
To feed just one tenth of Beijing’s 20 million people, analysts estimate that 890,000 pigs need to be grown each year. According to a plan drafted this year, China must raise three times what it did last year, the primary motivation for the return of suburban farms. The southeastern city of Nanjing is also building 12 farms to quadruple its hog output, while Zhejiang, the coastal province south of Shanghai, aims to produce 50% more pigs than it did in 2018.
New York City Serves More Than 1 Million Free Meals A Day During Pandemic
Since mid-March, New York City has served more than 40 million free meals and counting. The city partnered with Unqork, a Manhattan-based no-code software application company, to build a digital platform allowing residents to order free meals through city-licensed taxi and ride-sharing drivers desperate for work. The city’s Emergency Food Home Delivery program is now serving nearly 900,000 meals a day, said Kathryn Garcia, the city’s Department of Sanitation commissioner, who is coordinating the meal program. Meals are prepared by 40 different vendors ranging from private catering companies to a foodservice operation that supplies meals to airlines. Vendors are typically reimbursed $7 to $9 for each prepared meal.
As the Emergency Food Home Delivery delivery program launched, the New York City Department of Education also began efforts to feed children by offering free “Grab-and-Go” meals prepared by cafeteria employees. The program quickly expanded to include adults as well, and now it is serving about 540,000 free meals a day. Combined, these two programs are serving nearly 1.5 million free meals a day.
New Online Grocery Markets Surge In Africa
When coronavirus restrictions shut down open-air food markets in sub-Saharan Africa, online grocery stores expanded to fill the void. The online markets came just as 73 million people in Africa were deemed acutely food insecure (without access to nutritious, affordable food), according to the World Health Organization, and another 147 million were on the brink of extreme poverty and malnutrition, according to the Washington D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute.
African tech companies such as Fresh In A Box are now making sure those under lockdown can get fresh food. Fresh In A Box launched in Zimbabwe in October 2018 selling surplus fruits and vegetables from local farms, but the service now distributes about 2.6 tonnes of fruits and vegetables a day from nearly 2,000 farmers, says co-founder Kudakwashe Musasiwa. Customers order online and get a weekly delivery of produce at home. Zimbabwean nurse Sinothando Mpofu says the fruits and vegetables are better quality than what’s typically sold at the supermarket and at a third of the cost.
Other online grocery services such as Uganda’s Market Garden and Namibia’s Tambula have also begun to thrive. Their success is due in part to stay-at-home orders but also to smartphone access, which has only recently reached the majority of people in sub-Saharan Africa, according to figures from the Pew Research Center.
