RAPID Collaborative: Networks and Spatial Dynamics of the US Food Supply Chain amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

食品供应链的安全和保障对于预防COVID-19的传播至关重要。在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间，很明显，美国的粮食供应体系很脆弱。随着疫情迫使餐馆关闭或大幅缩减运营，新闻报道称，由于买家（餐馆）不再购买，农民正在丢弃产品。与此同时，消费者在超市里很难找到合适的产品。餐馆供应网络在美国供应网络的弹性和可持续性方面发挥的作用可能比人们想象的要大。现在很明显，这些食物分配网络可能是为了最大限度地提高效率而独立进化的，而不是为了应对流行病等风险。认识到这一问题及其对经济、就业和国家安全的潜在影响，美国政府已投入数十亿美元购买并重新分配农民丢弃的食物。这项研究将通过快速评估餐馆供应网络（包括餐馆老板、分销商和生产商）的中断情况，找出2019冠状病毒病大流行期间食品供应网络中的薄弱环节。该团队新颖的空间、人种学、网络（SENs）方法也将通过量化供应链中难以触及的组件来推进供应链管理理论。目标是提供可操作的战略，以确定人们如何适应并帮助建立一个更具抵御力和可持续性的美国粮食系统，并在未来的意外事件中避免这些中断。最后，该项目新颖的SENs方法将培养学生的研究方法，这些方法可以快速应用于应对全球食品系统中意想不到的变化。供应链学者正在呼吁新的理论发展，以解释复杂性和动态性，并为供应网络中的隐藏组件提供可见性。该项目将通过空间、人种学衍生的网络（SENs）弥合知识差距。采用多阶段比较研究设计，能够最大限度地发挥关键维度分析的比较潜力：COVID-19的发病和强度以及区域供应分布随时间的影响。总体目标是了解参与者（餐馆老板、经销商和农民）供应网络的结构和空间特征，这些特征会导致各种结果（例如，新的商业机会、更可持续的做法、继续经营或关闭商店）。关键信息提供者访谈将用于设计结构化访谈，该访谈将在两个时间点进行。将从这些调查中得出一些衡量标准，这些标准是针对关键线人的空间明确的食品供应网络，包括表征分销商类型、地理和自我网络措施的采购多样性指数。通过在大流行开始时和整个大流行期间捕捉这些中断，该项目将能够确定粮食供应网络中脆弱的关键领域，不仅是在这次大流行中，而且在其他全球中断中。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Security and safety in food supply chains is critical to preventing the transmission of COVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that the US food-supply system is vulnerable. As the pandemic forced restaurants to close, or dramatically curtail operations, the news reported that farmers were discarding products because the buyers (restaurants) were no longer buying. At the same time consumers are struggling to find products in the supermarkets. Restaurant-supply networks may play a larger role in the resilience and sustainability of the US supply network than people had thought. It is clear now that these food distribution networks likely have evolved independently to maximize efficiency, not resiliency to risks such as pandemics. Recognizing this problem, and the potential impact on the economy, jobs, and national security, the US government has invested billions of dollars to buy and redistribute food that farmers were discarding. This research will pinpoint weak links in the food-supply network during the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly assessing disruptions in restaurant-supply network, which include restaurateurs, distributors, and producers. The team’s novel spatial, ethnographic, networks (SENs) approach will also advance supply chain management theory by quantifying difficult-to-reach components within supply chains. The goal is to provide actionable strategies that can identify how people can adapt and help create a more resilient and sustainable US Food System amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and avoid these disruptions in future unanticipated events. Finally, the project’s novel SENs approach will train students in research methods that can be rapidly applied to tackle unexpected changes in our global food system. Supply-chain scholars are calling for new theoretical developments that account for the complexities and dynamics, and provides visibility to hidden components in supply networks. This project will bridge the gap in knowledge through spatial, ethnographically-derived, networks (SENs). A multi-phase comparative research design is employed that allows the ability to maximize the comparison potential of the analysis along key dimensions: the onset and intensity of COVID-19 and the influence of regional supply distribution over time. The overall goal is to understand what are the structural and spatial characteristics of actors’ (restaurateurs’, distributors’, and farmers’) supply networks that lead to various outcomes (e.g., new business opportunities, more sustainable practices, staying in business, or closing shop). Key informant interviews will be used to design structured interviews that will be conducted at two points in time. A number of measures will be derived from these survey spatially-explicit food supply networks for key informants, including a Sourcing Diversity Index that characterizes distributor typologies, geography, and ego network measures. By capturing these disruptions at the onset, and throughout the pandemic, this project will be able to identify key areas of the food-supply network that are vulnerable, not only for this pandemic, but other global disruptions.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.