How COVID-19 is upending global food supply chains

Satara/Singapore/London | Reuters — In the fertile Satara district in western India, farmers are putting their cattle on an unorthodox diet: Some feed iceberg lettuce to buffalo. Others feed strawberries to cows. It’s not a treat. They can either feed their crops to animals or let them spoil. And other farmers are doing just that — dumping truckloads of fresh grapes to rot on compost heaps. The farmers cannot get their produce to consumers because of lockdowns that aim to stop the spread of coronavirus. In India, as in many parts of the world, restrictions on population movement are wreaking havoc on farming and food supply chains and raising concern of more widespread shortages and price spikes to come. Across the globe, millions of labourers cannot get to the fields for harvesting and planting. There are too few truckers to keep goods moving. Air freight capacity for fresh produce has plummeted as planes are grounded. And there is a shortage of food containers for shipping ...