User:Theleot/COVID-19 Impact

Note: If you're looking for part one of the final project (focusing on COVID-19) you can find that here.

Sustainable seafood: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Chile's salmon farms, declared critical industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, are one of the country's major employers.

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting seafood supply chains on every level, from fisherfolk and coastal communities to large scale processors, distributors, foodservice buyers, and consumers. Many seafood commodities are suffering from unprecedented drops in market value and the communities that capture and produce these commodities have been significantly disrupted. A variety of policy approaches balancing public and economic health have been implemented in response. Canada, Scotland, Norway, and Chile have identified salmon farming as a critical economic sector, loosening pandemic-related restrictions on the industry. In Chiloé, Chile, salmon industry leaders made a voluntary commitment to operate at 50% capacity to reduce contagion risk. In Norway, timelines on all personal and vessel certificates have been extended by three months. In Scotland, fishing vessel owners are receiving federal assistance proportional to their vessel's size. As a precautionary measure, Indonesia has halted imports of live fish from China. In the United States, a coalition of major US seafood producers including Cargill and Trident Seafoods requested federal assistance to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the US seafood industry and supply chain in a letter to President Donald Trump sent on March 24, 2020. Specifically, the coalition expressed concern for “the companies and workers who harvest, farm, prepare, process, package, and distribute the food products that we produce in our country”—producers and mid-chain entities in the seafood supply chain. They warn that without immediate financial assistance the COVID-19 pandemic will "cause permanent damage to our nation’s ability to harvest, farm, process, and distribute seafood products.” Three recommendations are given: first to increase USDA Section 32 Farm and Food Support spending by two billion dollars, second to provide 1.5 billion dollars in assistance to the Department of Commerce to respond to the man-made economic disaster of foodservice closures, and third to purchase $500 million of surplus seafood via the Secretary of Commerce and Department of Agriculture. As of May 2020, these requests are far from being met. On May 7, 2020, the US Secretary of Commerce announced an amendment to Sec. 12005 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act allocating $300 million in financial assistance to COVID-19 affected coastal and fishery communities. On the same day, President Donald Trump enacted the Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth. The order aims to increase the competitiveness of the American seafood industry via deregulation. Under the order, all eight Regional Fishery Management Councils must provide policy recommendations to "reduce burdens on domestic fishing" and initiate these recommendations by May 7, 2021.

Tens of thousands of reefers, large refrigerated containers, holding seafood were stranded in Chinese ports following the Lunar New Year holiday.

Sales of processed seafood products like surimi have increased in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

China is the world's largest producer, consumer, importer, exporter, and processor of seafood and seafood products. In February of 2020, freight activity in Chinese ports crashed to less than a third normal levels as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. China's imports and exports plummeted forcing distributors to rapidly find new markets or let their product spoil. The country's ports suffered from severe congestion. With travel restricted and ports barely operational, huge quantities of frozen seafood were stranded at sea for weeks. In March of 2020, Beijing began providing federal assistance to reinvigorate the seafood transporters and distributors. However, most efforts were focused on keeping reefers (large refrigerated containers) plugged in so that fish doesn’t spoil, rather than distributing that food to buyers and consumers.

No country is unaffected by the pandemic and every policy aiming to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 must make compromises. However, the cost of these compromises in low-income nations can be particularly severe. Small scale fisheries make up the majority of the fishing sector in emergent nations. Fishing vessels, landing sites, and processing plants are frequently crowded, even more so where regulations are less prevalent. For example, nearly 10% of Ghana residents are employed by local fisheries. Congregation is the central element of the country's fishing communities. People of all ages gather at landing sites to catch, sell, and process fish. Ghana's coast is dotted by more than 300 landing sites, each of which draws crowds of a hundred or more daily. It's fisheries and others like them tend to be major employers and produce locally available and economically accessible protein, enhancing food and job security. The 2.2 million Ghanaians working in fisheries produce 60% of animal protein in an average Ghanaian diet. Rarely exported small pelagic fish are often smoked and dried, preserving them without the need for refrigeration. These dried fish, known locally as the "people's fish," are essential to the food security of Ghana's poor communities. Notably, the "people's fish" are threatened by the pandemic despite not having a place in globalized supply chains like most seafood commodities. Leaders must choose: close the markets and critically threaten the food security of millions, or leave them open and allow tens of thousands of Ghanaians to congregate shoulder to shoulder daily, encouraging community spread of COVID-19 in a country whose health care system ranks in the bottom 30% worldwide.

Frozen, canned, or otherwise processed seafood products have weathered the pandemic far better than fresh fish, sometimes even showing an upward trend in sales. Historically, consumers have shown a preference for processed seafood over fresh fish because “they feel assured that it is not going to make them sick.” While there is no evidence that COVID-19 can be spread by seafood, this belief appears to be significantly shaping consumer behavior. The Chinese online retailer Hema Fresh has seen online orders for processed seafood products like surimi "skyrocket." While consumers appear to be choosing processed seafood for health reasons, this trend puts more of the most vulnerable at risk. Seafood processing plants, often the only employer available for low-income workers, are notoriously cramped and have a poor history of health practices. These externalities (costs that not borne by those who produce and sell goods) are hidden by the conceptual, temporal, and physical distance between the seafood and the consumers in today's interconnected seafood marketplace.