Former St. Johnsbury Rotarian, Hank Parker, joined us on June 22nd to discuss the food supply in the US and issues related to pandemics and other vulnerabilities.
Hank Parker shared an excellent overview of the food and agricultural enterprise in the United States.
He started with an overview of the size and scope of this enterprise, current challenges, including the number of people facing food insecurity and food waste, as well as the number of small and family farms. Hank shared how this enterprise is more than just about food - related to non-food products and the support systems and services involved.
There are a number of vulnerabilities within our current system, with pandemics being one aspect that has the potential to negatively affect the system. These vulnerabilities include large corporate farming with vertical integration (one company controlling all aspects from farm to table), concentration (many animals kept together, geographic location of farms), diseases of both farm animals and plants, labor force and human health (aging farmers, migrant labor, concentration of workers, and workers in transportation, etc...), distances from the products to the consumer, imports, and market forces (just in time inventory, shortages from panic buying, and restaurants/school vs. consumers eating at home.
There is hope. US agriculture is resilient but pandemics do make rapid response challenging. Therefore, there are things we can do and opportunities to improve food security in our region including: increase reliance on locally-sourced food, increase regional food store capacity, increase regional food banks and meal sites, and grow your own food. The pandemic has been a wake up call in many ways, and Vermont is on the cutting edge of implementing these recommendations.
Hank holds a PhD in biological oceanography and is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's School of Medicine, where he has taught a course on biological threats to food and agriculture. He formerly served as a Senior Executive and Acting Director of Homeland Security for the Agricultural Research Service of USDA and has published and lectured on bio- and agro-terrorism. He is the author of the book, Containment. Hank lives in Vermont and was happy to join our club for a meeting!