How the food supply chains survived to the Covid-19?

By Manuela Martínez Guerra

In this report, an analysis will be made of food supply chains and how they faced
covid-19, how they managed it and how they were able to live with the virus based
on the report "Food Supply Chains and COVID-19: Impacts and Policy Lessons".

The report tells us about the arrival of the virus in food supply chains and the main
consequences. In the first instance, we talk about how the virus affects agricultural
production and the lack of inputs. Due to the arrival of the virus and the rapid
spread that it has, clearly mandatory quarantines should be carried out, as well as
the implementation of biosafety protocols, and even stopping activities. And not
only this, it also speaks of the conflict of accessing inputs such as seeds,
pesticides, fertilizers and other inputs necessary for agriculture, in addition to the
conflict of labor, since the comparison was made between certain products such as
fruits and vegetables. vegetables (which required more labor) than seeds (which
required less labor). A specific example mentioned in the report is meat production.
Due to Covid-19, many companies were forced to close or work with a reduced
number of workers.
The second problem generated in food supply chains caused by covid-19 is
transportation. It is mentioned that three main modes of transport are used in food
transportation: bulk (ships and barges); containers (by boat, rail or truck) and other
road transport; and air freight. (OECD, 2020). There are transports that are more
affected than others. For example, the most affected is air since it had drops of up
to 80%.
And finally, we have restaurants and food services. It could be seen that at the
beginning of the arrival of covid, the restaurants reached a point of having 0
reservations due to the quarantine, and therefore they no longer had consumers,
and the restaurants no longer placed orders for supplies. There are some
restaurants that decide to close since they do not have enough demand to cover
expenses; However, other restaurants decide to join the technological trend and
enter the world of e-commerce.

In conclusion, you can see a clear example of a business cycle. It can be seen how
the arrival of covid-19 gave a 360° turn to the food supply chain. At first it
generated a clear recession, since there was a very high decrease in economic
activity, due to problems with raw materials, transportation, customers, and so on.
However, companies knew how to handle this crisis and were able to reach their
consumers despite everything. Furthermore, the report talked a lot about how the
2007-2008 crisis should not be repeated, but this recession provided the
information and data to predict this recession caused by covid-19 and better
decisions could be made, not only by producers and companies, but also by the
government by giving tax exemptions when importing and exporting.

My advice for companies is to make a research plan first, see the environment and
make decisions. For example, Carrefour saw that its Indian supplier was not
responding, it acquired one in Pakistan. It is a clear example of not getting stuck in
the situation but looking for alternatives. And my last piece of advice is to use as
many tools as possible. It is clearly notorious that one aspect that stood out
impressively in the pandemic was the digital sphere, for all sectors, from education
to agriculture. For both retail stores and restaurants, my advice would be to adapt
the business model in the digital sphere; This way they can continue carrying out
their activities, reach more of the market and not allow a crisis like Covid-19 to put
an end to the business.
Bibliography

OECD. (July 2nd, 2020). Food Supply Chains and COVID-19:

https://articulateusercontent.com/rise/courses/4yqKnYCuGNirNxA2BlXMfQTnlbWU
4qeq/jI2MWWBpx9Wdodhy-OECD%2520(2020)%2520Food%2520Supply
%2520Chains%2520and%2520Covid-19%2520Pandemic.pdf