Abstract
Today’s domestic US food production is the result of an industry optimized for competitive, high yielding, and high-growth production for a globalized market. Yet, industry growth may weaken food system resilience to abrupt disruptions by reducing the diversity of food supply sources. In this paper, we first explore shifts in food consumption toward reliance upon complex and long-distance food distribution, food imports, and out-of-home eating. Second, we discuss how large-scale, rapid-onset hazards may affect food access for both food secure and insecure households. We then consider whether and how regional food production might support regional food resilience. To illustrate these issues, we examine the case of western Washington, a region not only rich in agricultural production but also threatened by a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and tsunami. Such an event is expected to disrupt transportation and energy systems on which the dominant food distribution system relies. Whether a regional food supply—for the purposes of this paper, defined as food production in one or adjacent watersheds—can support a broader goal of community food resilience during large-scale disruption is a key theme of our paper. The discussion that ensues is not meant to offer simplistic, localist solutions as the one answer to disaster food provision, but neither should regional food sources be dismissed in food planning processes. Our exploration of regional farm production, small in scale and flexible, suggests regional production can help support food security prior to the arrival of emergency relief and retail restocking. Yet in order to do so, we need to have in place a robust and regionally appropriate food resilience strategy. This strategy should address caloric need, storage, and distribution, and, in so doing, rebalance our dependence on food supplied through imports and complex, domestic supply chains. Clearly, diversity of food sourcing can add redundancy and flexibility, allowing more nimble food system adaptation in the face of disruption.
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Notes
Regardless of type of disaster, evacuation and stockpiling are premised on sufficient resources. For low-income households, stockpiling and evacuation may be unaffordable. Households without private transportation must rely upon social networks or already overwhelmed public and emergency transport to evacuate. Many often choose to ride out the events at home, as was seen in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
The World Health Organization and other United Nations agencies routinely complete rapid food security assessments of endemic and disaster-induced food insecurity in low-income countries. While crucial for humanitarian response to these events, the differences in subsistence, income, and spatial distribution of population make these assessments less useful for deducing disaster impacts to food access in the USA.
A less extreme case of food shortage made international news when New Zealanders faced a shortage of Marmite spread several months after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
An import “line,” whether it accounts for one or one thousand items, is a data element provided by an import broker.
The loss estimates discussed are based upon 90th percentile damage estimates—indicating a damage state with only a 10 % estimated change of being exceeded. This credible worst-case scenario is used for regional planning purposes in Washington and Oregon and helps to account for secondary impacts of landslides and aftershocks not well modeled in the loss estimation program.
Tsunami wave heights are expected to be much smaller and less damaging by the time they reach Seattle, Tacoma, and other urban centers within the Salish Sea; Vancouver Island will refract much of the wave energy back out into the Pacific Ocean basin.
Loss modeling of injuries is based upon the time of day. Earthquake events that occur in the middle of the night tend to cause the least injury and death in the USA, as most people are in the relative safety of their homes. Events that occur during the daytime, especially during commuting hours, are expected to increase injuries by an order of magnitude or more.
Existing observations of survivors of famine and concentration camps and other extreme events indicate that most healthy adults can survive without food for approximately 30 days and without water for several days (Packer 2002). While it is comforting to think that few healthy adults would die from lack of food access in a Cascadia event, the aim of community disaster planning around food security should be that ensuring survivors do not experience a dramatic increase in food insecurity during the immediate aftermath and recovery from these events.
A statewide assessment (Green and Cornell 2015) suggests high quantities of food that are produced and stored in eastern Washington. Stone fruits, grains, and potatoes produced on the Columbia Plateau and wheat and legumes in the Palouse could contribute to Washington state food security. However, transporting such food items to affected communities in western Washington would be hampered by bridge damage and landslides in mountain passes and along the I-5 corridor.
Several seafood processors and cold storage facilities along the Pacific Coast are within the tsunami inundation zone.
Note that virtually all the hazelnuts in the USA are produced in Oregon as reported by the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center and USDA ERS statistics on fruit and tree nuts, although Washington state is gaining ground. Hazelnuts in Oregon would necessarily better support affected communities in that state.
Due to prohibitions on use of federal monies, food stored in contracted warehouses, such as food banks, may not be used for disaster-related assistance until authorized. Note that the Washington State Emergency Operations Center would be responsible for deciding and communicating with the county food banks before contracted warehouses could modify their standard food distribution protocol.
Also important to consider in terms of food delivery is the concept of “emergency relief chains,” i.e., links between customer services and nonprofit, nonroutinized supply chains. Examples attest to the ability of regional food networks to provide scheduled food assistance, such as school lunch programs (Sanger and Zenz 2004). In terms of short-term relief, infrastructure and relief program organization remain challenges. Better understanding of what motivates such “chains” in a humanitarian context is needed (Oloruntoba and Gray 2009). Further, a more empathetic distribution system would also prioritize palatability in provision of usual and customary foods.
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Paci-Green, R., Berardi, G. Do global food systems have an Achilles heel? The potential for regional food systems to support resilience in regional disasters. J Environ Stud Sci 5, 685–698 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-015-0342-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-015-0342-9