The Price of Vulnerability
An overview of how our food systems get disrupted and the systemic factors behind them
Welcome back to Who Wants Seconds! As we were brainstorming ideas for what to write about, there was one word that kept showing up in our conversations and the articles we were reading – vulnerability. While we’d love to live in a world where our food system is designed to adapt when confronted with disturbances, the reality is that the system is prone to frequent disruptions. Look no further than what’s happening with egg prices in the United States. In response to the nationwide egg shortage, prices have skyrocketed, grocery stores have started to impose limits on the amount of eggs one consumer can buy, and some restaurants have even implemented an “egg surcharge” to compensate for their rising costs.
While this might feel like an unfamiliar crisis to consumers, what we’re seeing isn’t new by any means. The food system continues to be and historically has been susceptible to shocks across environmental, economic, and social domains. Inspired by this, this week’s post dives deeper into the factors contributing to the vulnerability of food systems.
As always, we encourage our readers to get involved in the discussion. Have thoughts on the vulnerability of the food system? Feel free to comment below – we’d love to hear from you and keep the conversation going! We hope you enjoy this week’s topic and we look forward to seeing you back here on April 2nd.
Merci!
The Road to Vulnerability
Over the last six decades, agricultural production has changed dramatically from traditional farming methods toward more industrialized approaches in order to meet the demands of a growing population. Today, modern agriculture is defined by the development of high-yielding seed varieties and the industrial production of synthetic, nitrogenous fertilizers and other inputs. This rapid increase in agricultural output caused by these technological changes has led to a significant shift in the world’s food supply and resulted in lower rates of undernourishment.
Between 1960 and 1990, food supply in developing countries increased 13%. Had it not been for the widespread adoption of industrialized agriculture, estimates suggest that food production in developing countries would have been almost 20% lower, and food prices would have been 35-65% higher. There’s no question that many benefits have come from these efforts as they have helped to increase food availability, reduce food costs and poverty rates, and avoid the conversion of thousands of hectares of land into farmland. However, industrialization and globalization have also come with their own risks and limitations leading to more vulnerable food systems.
Consolidation Within the World’s Food Supply
As agriculture has shifted to a more industrialized system, the global food supply has become concentrated in the hands of a shrinking number of giant multinational corporations. To some people, such consolidation is an asset, proof of the impressive productivity and efficiency of modern agriculture. However, the reality is that this concentrated power has many negative consequences, particularly for farmers, consumers, and communities that depend on agriculture to drive their economies.
In the United States, major sub-sectors of the agriculture industry have seen massive shifts in power that have resulted in corporate actors getting to control who gets to farm and how they farm, what food gets produced and sold, and how much we all have to pay for it. Most notably, a ton of consolidation has occurred within the meat processing and egg industries, with the beef industry representing the most egregious example of consolidation.
As of 2021, the 10 largest meatpackers controlled 91% of the national cattle slaughter, and nearly all fed cattle slaughtered in the United States (98%) were processed by just 20 firms. Without a healthy amount of competition to keep them in line, these firms have the power to depress the prices paid to farmers for livestock, subject plant workers to unconscionable labor conditions, and deceive consumers into paying premium prices with rampant false advertising about the origin, quality, and sustainability of their products.
The current egg shortage in the U.S. is another example that highlights how consolidation within industries can backfire due to a lack of supplier diversity. Between 1900 and 1999, the number of US farms producing eggs dropped from 5 million to under 1000. Today, the five largest egg companies control 36-40% of all egg-laying hens in the United States, the largest 10 control around 53% of the total, and the largest 20 control just under 73%. When production is so highly concentrated among a small number of firms, there is less ability to adapt to external pressures such as the latest wave of avian flu. If a few chickens get sick in a facility that has millions of other chickens, the whole flock gets wiped out.
Concentration may lead to efficiencies, but it also comes with brittleness. As a nation, we have too many eggs in one industrialized basket. However, this is not just a problem that solely impacts the United States. The European Union as well as countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand all struggle with highly concentrated, corporatized food systems.
Globalized Supply Chains
The globalization of our food systems has allowed more countries to trade freely, expanding the availability and diversity of food in their markets. But this growing interdependence also means they’re more reliant on food trade, leaving supply chains — from production and processing to transport and consumption — highly vulnerable to external shocks like wars/armed conflicts, climate change, and pandemics.
Wars and Armed Conflicts
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a stark example of how a localized conflict can disrupt supply chains and have far-reaching consequences for global food security.
Together, Russia and Ukraine account for over 50% of the world’s wheat, oats, and barley production,along with significant shares of sunflower and rapeseeds. However, the war has severely impacted the production of these staples—and fertilizer—by destroying crops and infrastructure, displacing labor, and disrupting trade routes.
As we learned in 10th-grade economics, a reduced supply drives up prices—and the current shortage of key commodities has done just that. Poorer countries are hit the hardest, as they rely heavily on imports, struggle with food self-sufficiency, and often lack the financial resources to absorb rising costs. Many African and Asian nations depend on Russia and Ukraine for wheat imports, in some cases for as much as 50%. A recent study estimates that the war has led to a global food shortage of 53–130 million tons, with the majority of the impact felt in Asia (80%), followed by Africa (10%) and Europe (7%). This example emphasizes how interconnected food systems are and the potential risks that are associated with this.
Climate Change
Agricultural systems are a major driver of climate change because they emit large amounts of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide and also contribute to environmental issues like nutrient runoff and soil degradation. But climate change is also threatening food production, distribution, and consumption.
Within a food system’s supply chain, food production is the most vulnerable to climate events. Droughts have already reduced yields for the world’s four major crops (i.e. wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans) and yield losses are expected to rise under future climate scenarios. In the spring of 2022, France experienced a shortage of Dijon mustard after a climate-induced heat wave in Canada–a major exporter of mustard seeds– reduced production by 50%, and last summer, high temperatures in Southern Europe slashed production of a staple product like olive oil.
In addition to production, distribution is also at risk since transportation networks are easily disrupted by climate shocks, such as hurricanes flooding land routes. As climate change continues to impact both production and distribution, food prices increase and further strain consumer purchasing power. While these impacts are visible in wealthier nations, they are most severe in lower-income countries. Currently, over 70% of low-income nations are experiencing food inflation rates above 5%, disproportionately impacting poorer households that spend a large share of their income on food. This, once again, highlights food insecurity on both macro and micro levels—affecting low-income countries as well as poorer segments of the population (which is true for both poorer and wealthier nations!).
These are not isolated incidents—changing precipitation patterns, floods, heat waves, wildfires, and salinization will continue to threaten food security. In 2023, about 280 million people were food insecure, with 20% in East Africa, and as natural disasters become more frequent and intense, supply chains will face more disruptions, and this number is likely to rise.
Pandemics
The impact of COVID-19 on global food systems further reveals the structural vulnerabilities of supply chains by shining a light on what can happen when pandemics cause labor shortages to occur. During the most recent pandemic, labor shortages were felt both in the field and within processing plants. In particular, travel restrictions resulted in a reduced labor force on farms that were heavily reliant on seasonal migrant workers to harvest and collect their produce. Barred from traveling, many workers were unable to make it back to the farms that they worked on.
In addition to this, the global meat industry was highly affected by COVID-19 as many slaughterhouses and meat processing plants had to close down to prevent the virus from spreading. Lockdowns combined with the spread of illness decreased the production capacity up to 25, 43, and 15% for the beef, pork, and chicken industries. As highlighted previously, there is so much consolidation within the meat industry thus when disaster strikes, it has a significant impact on the market. Eventually, these industries stabilized, but the power of the pandemic to seize control over the workforce shows that these systems need to be more resilient so that when one firm experiences a shortage, it doesn’t cause the rest of the system to fail.
Pathways Forward
So, where do we go from there? In theory, we know what food systems need to address their vulnerabilities – greater resiliency, increased diversity, and more financial/political support for local and regional production systems. For example, stronger anti-trust laws could be implemented to break up concentration among agricultural industries. Doing so could increase the number of firms responsible for the supply of certain food products and allow for greater resiliency when things like pandemic outbreaks, climate change-induced destruction, and other disruptions occur. Another solution to alleviate external shocks for low-income, import-reliant countries would be to enhance local production, while also fostering regional coalitions to reduce dependence on long-distance trade, and encourage mid-distance trade.
We understand what makes our food systems dysfunctional—it’s not that we don’t know the issues; we do. But putting those solutions into practice is much harder than it seems. The global food system is made up of interconnected regional and local food systems, each with its own challenges that require tailored approaches to address them—there is no “silver bullet” solution. In future posts, we hope to explore these solutions even further as we try to re-envision what a more resilient food system could look like. Until next time, we encourage you to think about what food system vulnerability looks like to you.
