Particularly in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, food supply chains struggled to adapt to changing consumption patterns and processors shut down due to virus outbreaks.

“Into that void of uncertainty came a lot of voices on suggestions and policies,” said Ryan Cardwell, an economist and professor from the University of Manitoba. He spoke during a University of Manitoba online webinar on April 14.

Cardwell saw two common themes from commenters: food production and security were seriously threatened and must be transformed, and that farm incomes and production were in jeopardy.

“I felt that a lot of the commentary that I was reading was perhaps unwarranted, and even worse, perhaps misguided and may have resulted, had it been followed, in policies that made things even worse,” he said.

There were several short-term shocks like the shift of food expenditures from food service to retail, said Jill Hobbs, an agriculture economist from the University of Saskatchewan. This required realignment of supply chains.

However, she called these short-run issues.

In broad strokes, however, food production was up, said Cardwell. Ag exports were “at or near a record,” he said.

The food consumer price index showed that in most months, the rate of food price inflation was below the rate of food price inflation in 2019.

“Food prices were very stable in 2020 relative to history,” said Cardwell.

Statistics for farm income in 2020 are not available but Cardwell said Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is forecasting that farm incomes will approach record levels.

Cardwell said even economists who were confident the food system would adapt were surprised how well it held up. This data suggests that early calls for transformational change were unwarranted, he said.

“There were sort of often ulterior motives to these things,” Cardwell said. “You know, people who had preferences for smaller scale, or whatever, were sort of capitalizing on this as an avenue forward for change.”

There’s no evidence that a more localized or regional food system would have fared any better if faced by the same shocks, Hobbs said.

Small meat processors, for instance, would be vulnerable to the same labour issues as large packers, she said. Several large packers had to shut down as COVID-19 spread among workers.

Initial calls for huge sums of money for farm risk management programs also proved to be unwarranted, said Alan Ker, director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Guelph.

“There was a lot of talk, rhetoric out there about that these programs would fall apart or farms would fall apart without sufficient funds going into these programs,” said Ker.

In April the Canadian Federation of Agriculture called for $2.6 billion in emergency funding for impacts not covered by existing risk management programs. The Grain Farmers of Ontario ran an ad which said “the food supply chain is breaking.”

The government put aside $125 million through its AgriRecovery framework for additional expenses caused by processing delays; however, Ker said he can’t tell that many farmers have capitalized on those funds.

FCC was given additional lending capacity, but there’s no evidence that a lot of it was used, said Ker. “These programs amounted to very little,” said Ker.

Cardwell and Ker agreed the suite of risk management programs would have held up, even if things went worse than they did.

The markets were nimble and responded quickly, said Cardwell. Government policies aren’t nimble so if considering a big change in policy, he said; we need good evidence to support it.

Last spring Ker, Hobbs and Cardwell wrote articles for a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Agriculture Economics in which they predicted how the food system would hold up during the pandemic. This spring they’re revisiting their predictions in another special issue of the journal.

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U.S. states, cities and hospitals are scrambling to buy freezers that can safely store Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine at temperatures of -70 C, significantly below the standard for vaccines.

Moderna’s vaccine can be stored at -20 C.

Smithfield, owned by China’s WH Group, has multiple “ultra-cold” freezers and will work with local authorities to provide assistance as needed, said chief administrative officer Keira Lombardo, without providing details.

The company is “ready and willing to assist health agencies should storage capacity become constrained,” she said in a statement to Reuters.

Thousands of meatpacking workers employed by Smithfield and rivals like Tyson Foods and JBS USA have been infected with COVID-19. Nearly 20 U.S. meat plants were shut in the spring due to outbreaks, tightening supplies, raising prices and making meatpacking one of the industries most impacted by the pandemic in the United States.

Smithfield may be able to keep Moderna’s vaccine in static freezers that store meat before it is exported or sold, said Chris Hodges, a former senior vice-president of business development for the company.

Other “blast” freezers that push cold air onto meat before it is moved into static freezers could potentially get cold enough to hold Pfizer’s version, although it would be very expensive to run them for long periods of time, he said.

“As it becomes more clear that successful vaccines will become available, we have communicated our capabilities and continued willingness to partner with health officials, including with vaccine distribution and storage,” Lombardo said.

Working with health agencies, Smithfield expects it can help distribute vaccines rapidly to food and agricultural workers hit hard by the pandemic, Lombardo said. The company also offered to aid distribution to other essential workers through healthcare offices at its facilities.

Meatpacking workers are considered essential in many states, but not at the top of the list for vaccines, which are expected to be distributed first to healthcare workers and nursing home residents.

Organizations representing food and meat companies have asked U.S. President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden for priority access to vaccines for workers.

Tyson said in an e-mail to Reuters it was closely monitoring the development of vaccines and working with healthcare experts on planning and distribution models for employees.

— Tom Polansek reports on agriculture and ag commodities for Reuters from Chicago.

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Martin Misener, a vet and chair of the Ontario Swine Health Advisory Board, challenged the hog industry to not get complacent about stopping PED.

Misener noted he had heard from people who wondered why the meeting was focused on PED as the number of outbreaks has dwindled. Last fall and winter (November 2015 to March 2016), at the time of year when outbreaks are more likely to happen, there were nine outbreaks in Ontario, compared to 43 from January to March 2014.

“It’s human nature to revert to complacency,” he said. “Folks, we are there. We are sitting on little volcanoes and big volcanoes of PED that could erupt at farm level at any time.”

The PED virus causes scours leading to extensive mortality for young piglets and longer-term reproductive issues for sows.

Despite some recent complacency, Misener said the ability of the industry to keep the virus under control is a good news story.

The industry has co-ordinated controlled regional PED elimination programs called ARC+E (Area Control and Elimination) in the industry. They have worked well, other than for a few individual farms that have not co-operated.

“Overall we have had great compliance,” says Misener. “We have had 150 PED situations, with only having a couple that are pesky.”

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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“Canadians and stakeholders will be consulted on the proposed regulatory changes that would permit the irradiation of fresh and frozen raw beef through a 75-day consultation period, ending on Sept. 1, 2016,” said Karen McIntyre, director general for Health Canada.

The process of irradiation involves passing foods through a machine that sends out low doses of ionizing radiation, typically gamma rays, to kill off unwanted organisms.

“This has several benefits to safety, including reducing the level of bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella, campylobacter,” McIntyre said. “This is not a new process. It is already approved in Canada to be used on onions, potatoes, wheat, white and whole wheat flour and seasoning preparations.”

Health Canada has taken the appropriate steps to conduct a safety review on irradiated raw ground beef, finding it is safe and retains its nutritional value, taste, texture and appearance.

If eventually approved by Health Canada, irradiation will be an optional tool for ground beef products but would require proper labelling.

“Labelling of irradiated food is mandatory. A written description is required, as well as the distinctive radura symbol, must be on the package. In cases of non-pre-packaged foods, this information must be on a sign displayed immediately next to the product at its point of sale,” McIntyre said.

Details on the consultation process and what will be required to comply will be published in the Canada Gazette on June 18.

“This will be a 75-day open consultation period where we will accept comments online,” said Barbara Lee, director of the Bureau of Chemical Safety.

The approval of irradiated raw ground beef was previously proposed in 2002 but it was never finalized, due mostly to negative stakeholder reactions.

Officials believe it will be more widely accepted this time around because of a few highly publicized, pathogen-linked outbreaks since 2002, including the largest recall of beef products in Canadian history in 2012 from XL Foods Inc.

“We have done some work on public opinion research and what we can see from that information is that, as a result of a number of highly visible outbreaks linked to pathogens, it is our opinion that the public opinion may have shifted to be more in favour of this process,” Lee said.

Health Canada’s technical summary on the evaluation of irradiation of fresh and frozen raw ground beef is available online.

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