COVID-19 and the US Lettuce Supply Chain: Implications for Farmworker Health and Safety and a Secure Supply

Q3 Business, Management and Accounting

Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization Pub Date : 2020-09-16 DOI:10.1515/jafio-2020-0029

Ali Loker

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.

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2019冠状病毒病和美国生菜供应链:对农场工人健康安全和可靠供应的影响

新冠肺炎疫情暴露了美国生菜价值链的多重脆弱性。餐馆和其他食品服务几乎在一夜之间关闭，给农民留下了数百万美元的多余生菜。由于僵化的价值链，农民被迫决定是将收获的作物用于捐赠，还是寻找新客户，还是将作物犁下。密切的工作和生活条件增加了农场工人感染COVID-19的风险。尽管许多农场已经实施了安全措施，以保护农场工人在短期内免受COVID-19的侵害，但必须进行更大的结构性改革，为工人提供公平的工资、获得医疗保险和带薪休假的机会，以及负担得起的住房。本文概述了美国目前的生菜价值链以及COVID-19造成的中断，分析了对农场工人健康和安全的影响，并为更具弹性的生菜价值链提供了建议。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization Business, Management and Accounting-Business, Management and Accounting (all)

CiteScore

3.10

自引率

0.00%

发文量

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.