{"title":"COVID-19 and the US Lettuce Supply Chain: Implications for Farmworker Health and Safety and a Secure Supply","authors":"Ali Loker","doi":"10.1515/jafio-2020-0029","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed multiple vulnerabilities in the U.S. lettuce value chain. Restaurants and other food service operations closed almost overnight, leaving farmers with millions of dollars of excess lettuce. Because of the rigid value chain, farmers were forced to decide whether to harvest their crops for donation, try to find new customers, or plow their crops under. Close working and living conditions increase farmworkers’ risk of contracting COVID-19. Though many operations have implemented safety measures to protect farmworkers from COVID-19 in the short-term, larger structural changes must be made to provide workers with fair wages, access to health insurance and paid time off, and affordable housing. This review outlines the current value chain of lettuce in the U.S. and the disruptions caused by COVID-19, analyzes the impacts on farmworker health and safety, and offers recommendations for a more resilient lettuce value chain.","PeriodicalId":52541,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jafio-2020-0029","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jafio-2020-0029","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Business, Management and Accounting","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed multiple vulnerabilities in the U.S. lettuce value chain. Restaurants and other food service operations closed almost overnight, leaving farmers with millions of dollars of excess lettuce. Because of the rigid value chain, farmers were forced to decide whether to harvest their crops for donation, try to find new customers, or plow their crops under. Close working and living conditions increase farmworkers’ risk of contracting COVID-19. Though many operations have implemented safety measures to protect farmworkers from COVID-19 in the short-term, larger structural changes must be made to provide workers with fair wages, access to health insurance and paid time off, and affordable housing. This review outlines the current value chain of lettuce in the U.S. and the disruptions caused by COVID-19, analyzes the impacts on farmworker health and safety, and offers recommendations for a more resilient lettuce value chain.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization (JAFIO) is a unique forum for empirical and theoretical research in industrial organization with a special focus on agricultural and food industries worldwide. As concentration, industrialization, and globalization continue to reshape horizontal and vertical relationships within the food supply chain, agricultural economists are revising both their views of traditional markets as well as their tools of analysis. At the core of this revision are strategic interactions between principals and agents, strategic interdependence between rival firms, and strategic trade policy between competing nations, all in a setting plagued by incomplete and/or imperfect information structures. Add to that biotechnology, electronic commerce, as well as the shift in focus from raw agricultural commodities to branded products, and the conclusion is that a "new" agricultural economics is needed for an increasingly complex "new" agriculture.
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