Friendshoring in global food supply chains

Abstract

In the last decade, climate change, Covid-19, and several international conflicts have created significant disruptions to global and regional supply chains, leading to a re-evaluation of the benefits of globalisation. Modelling food trade as network graphs, this study spotlights the effects of these shocks, on the structure, flow and evolution of food supply chains. Network centrality measures show substantial changes in the influence exerted by China, Russia, and the United States, among others. Using machine learning, community detection and global metrics such as clustering further detail the structural changes in the trade network. Differences between systemic and idiosyncratic shocks are also discussed.