Keeping up with the fast-moving world of crisis management

If a perfect storm were in the making, could the nation’s food and agricultural system have even contemplated it and planned for a response?

In early March of 2020, when the implications of the COVID-19 crisis were beginning to sink into the anxious American psyche, the nation’s reliable food and agricultural system was a comforting touchstone: Even if toilet paper couldn’t be found, the grocery stores still had plenty of meat, milk, fruit and vegetables. In the weeks that followed, however, the country’s notably stable supply chain has been set back on its heels. Stories of dairy producers dumping milk and Florida farmers plowing under fields of squash—the very picture of food waste—has been jarring and incongruous when juxtaposed with scenes of the newly unemployed, lining up at food banks, those operations now scrambling to find food to restock.

Not long after, a pork processing plant in South Dakota was ‘asked’ to close by the state’s governor, in part because half of the state’s cases of COVID-19 were plant workers. Like dominos falling, pork and beef packing plants across the country have become the latest hotspots for coronavirus outbreaks, forcing closures in Colorado, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and likely more to come. In Tennessee, a poultry processing facility closed after finding that 120 of the plant’s 1600 workers tested positive for the virus. Corporate leaders and USDA, like states and hospitals, are now scrambling to obtain test kits and protective gear from overseas for their workers here in the US. Animal producers predict big losses and economists are predicting higher prices for consumers. And in Kansas, authorities are looking to find space at junior colleges and other facilities to provide affected workers from these plants—some of the most economically vulnerable people in the country—with places to ride out their quarantine time.

Meanwhile, in early April, USDA quickly depopulated turkeys from a commercial plant in South Carolina after confirming the detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H7N3), which it said posed no public health risk and had apparently mutated from a low pathogenic strain found recently in the area. Flashback to 2015, when the disease forced the destruction of 48 million birds. And flash forward to today, as we speculate on the wet markets from which COVID-19 is said to have emerged.

All these issues beg the question of resilience in the food system. Perhaps it is because on an average day, the supply chain runs so smoothly that we do not think about the worst-case scenario. Even as we learn how to react more quickly to individual shocks like outbreaks of food-borne illness or feed contaminants, there is seldom a reflection on the food system’s collective capacity to manage emergency situations coming from multiple directions. In our current situation, for example, it would not be too far-fetched to think that an extreme event—a flood, a hurricane, a power outage—could “pile on” to further disrupt production, processing, and transportation. The point is not that we can predict all that can go wrong but rather that a low-key, continuous contemplation of the vulnerabilities that evolve out of our very dynamic system is needed.

In public health, the term One Health is used to describe important but somewhat amorphous interconnections between humans and our surrounding ecosystem, both humanmade and natural. The current emergency provides a laboratory in which to better explore and understand the term One Health and those connections, including the trade-offs that might come with proposed interventions. For example, models of 'local production' could reduce some risks, but also tend to be less productive and higher cost. Diversification—of crops, landscapes, farms, supply chains, and diets—might be a principle to guide efforts to build greater resilience, recognizing the last half-century of growth in the system has been built on specialization, efficiency, and just-in-time logistics, that have advantages, albeit controlled by a few actors. Finding our way forward will require useful data, thoughtful reflection, and engagement of all participants in the food supply, including scientists, extension personnel, industry, policymakers, funding agencies, and the public, on how to make our system productive, robust and resilient.

Biographies

Charles W. Rice

is a University Distinguished Professor of soil microbiology in the department of agronomy at Kansas State University. He conducts research on soil organic dynamics, nitrogen transformations, and microbial ecology. Recently, his research has focused on soil and global climate change, including carbon and nitrogen emissions in agricultural and grassland ecosystems and soil carbon sequestration and its potential benefits to the ecosystem. He is the current chairman of the National Academies’ Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Robin Schoen

is Director of the National Academies’ Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources. Robin leads the Board’s work in bringing experts together around issues related to food and agricultural production, forestry, wildlife, and the use of land, water, and other natural resources in response to requests from Congress and the federal agencies, states, and the private sector.

Aristos Aristidou

is Director of Cargill’s Biotechnology Research & Development Center, a global organization that develops new products and improves processes for the food, feed, and industrial segments of Cargill. He is an entrepreneurial leader with more than 20 years of international technical and operational experience in the area of bioprocess and biocatalyst development with expertise in leading teams of multi-disciplinary scientists involved in the development, scale-up, and technology transfer of commercial processes. Aristidou is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Shane C. Burgess

is Vice President for Agriculture, Life and Veterinary Sciences, and Cooperative Extension, Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Interim Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, and Director, Arizona Experiment Station at the University of Arizona. He has worked around the world as a practicing veterinarian and scientist. His areas of research expertise include cancer biology, virology, proteomics, immunology, bioinformatics, and computational biology.

Susan Capalbo

is Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at Oregon State University. She has been actively involved in the economics of climate change, agricultural-environmental tradeoffs, and policy analysis and assessment for the past 20 years. She integrates science and economics in addressing issues of sustainable agricultural policies in both developed and developing countries.

Gail Czarnecki-Maulden

is a senior research nutritionist at Nestle Purina PetCare PTC. She is responsible for development of innovative nutritional concepts for implementation in pet food products. She helped set nutrient standards for dog and cat foods in the United States by serving on the Association of American Feed Control Officials’ Canine and Feline Nutrition Experts Subcommittee.

Bernadette Dunham

is currently serving as a Professorial Lecturer at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, where her focus is on One Health issues. Previously, she served as the Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) from 2008-2016 where she oversaw the regulation of the manufacture and distribution of drugs, medical devices and food additives that are given to animals.

Gibesa Ejeta

is Distinguished Professor of Plant Breeding & Genetics and International Agriculture at Purdue University, and serves as Executive Director of the Purdue Center for Global Food Security. His research is focused on the genetic improvement of sorghum for resistance to pests, diseases, and environmental stress with enhanced productivity and nutritional quality.

Jay S. Famigilietti

is a Professor and the Director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, where he holds the Canada 150 Research Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing. His research interests are remote sensing of terrestrial and global hydrology, climate change impacts on hydrology and water resources, regional and global groundwater depletion, large-scale hydrological modeling, and science communication and water diplomacy.

Fred Gould

is the William Neal Reynolds Professor of entomology at North Carolina State University (NCSU). He studies the ecology and genetics of insect pests to improve food production and human and environmental health. One of his research projects involves genetically modified mosquitoes that have a reduced capacity to carry and spread dengue fever. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

John Hamer

is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio. His career spans more than three decades of research, senior management and investment experience in the life sciences in both academe and the private sector. His research interests are in new growth opportunities that are emerging in the agricultural value chain in food, health, energy, materials and chemicals.

Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

is a Professor and Assistant Director of the School of Environment and Natural Resources at the Ohio State University. Trained as a rural sociologist, his research has explored the dynamics of technological and structural change in the dairy, livestock, and wheat sectors. His research integrates social science theory and mixed methods into interdisciplinary studies of food and agricultural issues, such as the drivers and consequences of technological and economic change in the agrifood system.

James W. Jones

is a Distinguished Professor in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He has built his career based on using computer simulation to integrate scientific knowledge for use in agricultural decision-making and policy analyses. He specializes in agricultural production systems analysis, simulation, crop and soil modeling, climate effects on crop growth and yield, and computer applications in agriculture. Jones is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Ermias Kebreab

is Professor and Sesnon Endowed Chair, Department of Animal Science; Associate Dean of Global Engagement, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; and Director, World Food Center at the University of California, Davis. His research interests include whole system approach to quantifying greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture, development of energy and nutrient utilization/requirement models in cattle, swine and poultry; and sustainable agriculture, in particular animal production in relation to environmental sustainability.

Stephen S. Kelley

is the Reuben B Robertson Professor in the Department of Forest Biomaterials at North Carolina State University (NCSU). His research interests include the sustainable production of energy and materials from woody biomass, and the application of novel analytical tools to biomass.

Jan E. Leach

is the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Agriculture, University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University and an Adjunct Scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (Philippines). She is an authority on the molecular biology of plant–pathogen interactions. Her research focuses on understanding the molecular basis of durable disease resistance, particularly in rice-pathogen interactions.

Robin Lougee

is the IBM Research Lead for Consumer Products & Agriculture and a member of the IBM Industry Academy. She is an industrial research scientist with a strong track record of delivering innovation to IBM and its customers. She pioneered the creation of Computational Infrastructure for Operations Research (COIN-OR), an open-source foundry for computational operations research, and led its growth to an independent nonprofit that has served the scientific and business community for more than 15 years.

Jill J. McCluskey

is the Distinguished Professor of Sustainability in the School of Economic Sciences (SES) at Washington State University. Her research focuses on product quality and reputation, economics of sustainable labeling, consumer preferences for new technology, including sustainable energy, and how university policies affect women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.

Karen I. Plaut

is the Glenn W. Sample Dean of the College of Agriculture and Professor of Animal Sciences at Purdue University. She also operates the Dr. Karen Plaut Lab, which conducts research on mammary gland development and lactation. This research has concrete implications for Indiana farmers, especially those rearing cattle for dairy, as findings can help maximize lactation outputs, contributing to the health of the cattle and the farm.

Ricardo Salvador

is Senior Scientist and Director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He previously held positions at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and in the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University. In his present role, he works with citizens, scientists, economists, and politicians to transition our current food system into one that grows healthy foods while employing sustainable and socially equitable practices.

V. Alaric Sample

is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, as well as President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation in Washington, DC, where he served as President and CEO from 1995 to 2015. His current research is focused on the integration of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience into the evolving institutional, legal, and policy framework for natural resource management.