Washington, DC, USA
February 2, 2021
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans encountered empty grocery shelves for the first time. Simultaneously, farmers were dumping milk, euthanizing livestock and plowing under vegetables they were unable to send to food processing sites, which were strained by COVID-19 outbreaks. This disruption between suppliers and consumers underscores the need for better real-time monitoring and reporting of the status of the food supply chain to prevent or mitigate food crises. The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) is awarding a $221,743 grant to Purdue University to create a series of open-access online dashboards that help quantify and illustrate potential disruptions to the food supply chain. The dashboards will focus on COVID-19 but have the flexibility to be tailored to suit future market disruptions. Microsoft is providing matching funds for a $506,743 total investment, in addition to supplying cloud technology, business intelligence, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools.
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for easily accessible data on potential vulnerabilities in the food supply chain. This research is exposing those vulnerabilities in real-time, providing policymakers and industry with the information needed to prevent bottlenecks and ensure food security. Sally Rockey, Ph.D.
Executive Director
COVID-19 had devastating effects on food processing workers in the spring of 2020. As the number of infections grew, some segments of the food supply chain, including beef and pork processing, were operating at one point below 40 percent capacity. Current, timely data on food supply chain disruptions is critical for policymakers and industry to know where and how to respond. However, relevant data is often scattered across different federal agencies and private companies and is used mainly by specialists or industry insiders.
Purdue University researchers led by Dr. Jayson Lusk developed a preliminary Food and Agriculture Vulnerability Index Dashboard that quantifies the potential risk to the US food supply of COVID-19 illnesses among farm and agricultural workers. Purdue University researchers are expanding the dashboard to include metrics displaying potential economic loss from outbreaks and county-level estimates of COVID-19-impacted workers. The expansion will also add data on specific produce. The researchers are creating new dashboards focusing on the location of food processing centers and local COVID-19 cases, commodity-specific data on changes in supply, and food prices and product availability at retailers. The dashboards will rely on curated, open-access data to increase transparency and collaboration.
“We are excited to work with FFAR and Microsoft to increase understanding about the food supply chain by creating easily accessible, easily digestible real-time dashboards,” said Dr. Lusk. “Moreover, by using AI and machine learning, we hope to provide insights into market movements.”
These dashboards will improve public understanding of the origins of food and provide critical information for enhanced policy and industry-level decision making. With the data, food supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 and future disturbances can be identified before reaching catastrophic levels.
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