RAPID: Spatial Resilience of Food Production, Supply Chains, and Security to COVID-19

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The COVID-19 outbreak is affecting the national food system. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. stay-at-home measures) have disrupted food production, distribution through supply chains, and household food security. This project will collect ephemeral data on several components of the US food system that may not otherwise be properly archived during the pandemic. It will analyze the impacts of the disruptions on food production, food consumption, and supply chains to identify those locations most vulnerable to food security impacts. This project will also develop innovative analytical models and data integration approaches to investigate how the US food system is affected during a pandemic. Research outcomes, including county-level maps, model code, and spatial datasets, will be made freely available online for the research community. An online, interactive tool to explore how COVID-19 has disrupted the food supply chain will be produced to engage the public, media, and policy makers.COVID-19 is creating dramatic changes in the location and timing of food supply and demand through impacts on large institutional buyers, grocery stores and food pantries. These sudden shocks to supply and demand by location are already giving rise to localized price volatility in some areas. Households that have experienced a loss of income due to labor disruptions are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of these food price shocks. This research seeks to understand the geographical dimensions of food security, such as where and how COVID-19 is impacting the food system, with a focus on increasing food system resilience. Novel data will be gathered and methods developed to determine the impact of COVID-19 on US food production, distribution, and demand. The model and research approach developed in this project will be generalizable to evaluating other disruptions to national supply chains.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.