food life story

Half way through November. Year drawing to a close.

Covid test came back negative, which is a good thing.

And the news has been full of stories about the problems with the ‘supply chain’.

Ships waiting for room to dock at ports that are overwhelmed with containers already.

Not enough truck drivers to move all the containers out of storage in the ports.

And millions of first world consumers who have to wait for their new cars, appliances and holiday toys.

This comic strip:

And what does this have to do with Food, you ask?

Well, as I read today in the NYTimes, there is a bit more to the story…

It’s not only about shipping products to the U. S. What about the cargo these ships carry away from the U.S.?

“… one of the nation’s largest cooperatives, California Dairies, Inc, which manufactures milk powder for factories in Southeast Asia and Mexico that use it to make candy… roughly 60% of the company’s bookings on outbound vessels have been canceled or deferred in recent months…”

“Ships now take weeks, rather than days, to unload at the ports, and backed-up shippers are so desperate to return to Asia to pick up more goods that they often leave the United States with empty containers rather than wait for American farmers to fill them up.”

“Agriculture accounts for about one-tenth of America’s goods exports, and roughly 20 percent of what U.S. farmers and ranchers produce is sent abroad. The industry depends on an intricate choreography of refrigerated trucks, railcars, cargo ships and warehouses that move fresh products around the globe, often seamlessly and unnoticed.”

Food for thought.