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

食品供应链的安全保障对防止新冠肺炎传播至关重要。在新冠肺炎大流行期间，人们已经清楚地看到，美国的食品供应体系很脆弱。随着疫情迫使餐馆关闭或大幅缩减经营，新闻报道称，农民正在丢弃产品，因为买家(餐馆)不再购买。与此同时，消费者在超市里很难找到产品。餐厅供应网络可能在美国供应网络的弹性和可持续性方面发挥比人们想象的更大的作用。现在很明显，这些食品分配网络可能是为了最大限度地提高效率而独立进化的，而不是对流行病等风险的复原力。意识到这一问题及其对经济、就业和国家安全的潜在影响，美国政府已投资数十亿美元购买和重新分配农民丢弃的粮食。这项研究将通过快速评估餐馆供应网络的中断来查明新冠肺炎大流行期间食品供应网络的薄弱环节，餐馆供应网络包括餐馆老板、分销商和生产商。该团队的新空间、人种学、网络(SENS)方法还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。其目标是提供可行的战略，确定人们如何在新冠肺炎大流行中适应并帮助创建一个更具弹性和可持续发展的美国食品体系，并避免在未来的意外事件中发生这些中断。最后，该项目新颖的SENS方法将培训学生学习研究方法，这些方法可以迅速应用于应对全球食品体系中的意外变化。供应链学者正在呼吁新的理论发展，以解释复杂性和动态，并提供对供应网络中隐藏组件的可见性。该项目将通过空间、人种志衍生的网络(SENS)弥合知识的鸿沟。采用了多阶段比较研究设计，使分析能够沿着关键维度最大限度地发挥比较潜力：新冠肺炎的开始和强度，以及地区供应分布随时间的影响。总体目标是了解行为者(餐馆老板、经销商和农民)供应网络的结构和空间特征是什么，这些网络会导致不同的结果(例如，新的商业机会、更可持续的做法、继续经营或关闭商店)。关键线人访谈将用于设计分两个时间点进行的结构化访谈。将从这些调查中得出一些衡量标准--主要信息者的空间明确的食品供应网络，包括表征分销商类型、地理和EGO网络衡量标准的采购多样性指数。通过在疫情初期和整个大流行期间捕捉到这些干扰，该项目将能够识别食品供应网络中的关键区域，这些区域不仅对这次大流行，而且对其他全球干扰都是脆弱的。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.