Ida Piles On Climate Threat to U.S. Food Supplies

  • Date: 01-Sep-2021
  • Source: Washington Post
  • Sector:Oil & Gas
  • Country:Gulf
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Ida Piles On Climate Threat to U.S. Food Supplies

As drought continues to punish food producers throughout the American West, Hurricane Ida has reminded us that the very opposite problem — raging storms and floods — not only imperils crop production but can devastate global food distribution networks.

Centralized shipping networks are vulnerable to disruption — one storm in Louisiana can paralyze 60% of U.S. grain exports to the rest of the world. It’s the same lesson we learned from the devastating impacts of Covid-19 and cyberattacks on major meat processing facilities, which showed that consolidation has made the U.S. meat industry unacceptably fragile.

Again we’re left asking in the wake of disaster: When are we going to get serious about shifting the paradigm?