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An uptick in fires at food processing facilities has sparked concerns about the safety of America’s food supply.

Diseases have disrupted and severely damaged food production. The Covid pandemic closed meat processing facilities, forcing millions of healthy pigs to be euthanized in 2020. An insect-borne bacteria from China threatens the nation’s entire citrus production.

Man-made policies are causing painful food shortages worldwide. Last year, China hoarded half the world’s grain, driving up prices.

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain producers, has seen its exports down 30 percent since Russia’s invasion last February.

Climate change policies threaten to decimate food production in the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany, causing farmers to take to the streets in rebellion.

Climate policy-related indices that wealthy countries impose on smaller ones mean less fertilizer, creating unsustainable burdens on African food producers like Ghana.

Food security is a national security issue. Deepening public distrust of government institutions, big industry, and journalism, and polarization over climate change policies, have diminished the likelihood of consensus about the nature of the problem and what to do.

The US Department of Agriculture maintains a Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit on its website that’s 20 years old, emphasizing instead USDA’s role in supporting “global food security.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, on the other hand, describes the danger bluntly: “An attack on our food supply—whether from intentional tampering, or due to contagious animal disease—could be dangerous to human health and could cause long-lasting economic impacts.”

With foresight, some states and industries have teamed up to address food security before real disaster struck. When huanglongbing, a bacteria from China that kills citrus trees, struck Florida’s citrus groves, the state and its trademark citrus industry created a private foundation in 2009 to find a way to defeat the disease.

In what critics describe as a lack of strategic direction, the Florida Citrus Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) has spent more than $166,000,000 to overcome the disease, known in English as HLB or citrus greening. The foundation was created by state law and receives substantial taxpayer funding. As of two years ago, HLB wiped out 86 percent of Florida citrus production.

Rick Dantzler, a land lawyer who runs CRDF, struggled to persuade growers that the apparent lack of strategy with zero results didn’t mean that his organization was “simply chasing the latest shiny thing.”

But its board isn’t so sure. Last month, Citrus Industry reported that the foundation fairly admitted its failure, citing new policies that would “force CRDF to be laser-focused in directing funds toward research projects that will have near-term results in the fight against HLB.”

As if the HLB/citrus greening plague wasn’t bad enough, this year suffered its worst harvest since the Great Depression when a killer frost added to the crisis.

Meanwhile, food crises multiply as costs rise, with no public consensus about what to do to keep America’s food supply safe.

J. Michael Waller
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