H5N1

Not only COVID-19: New generation of locusts in east Africa ‘extremely alarming’

Via The Irish Times: New generation of locusts in east Africa ‘extremely alarming’. The full report and then another link:

A new generation of desert locusts is spreading across east Africa, posing a significant threat to food supplies across the region.  

Aid organisations and Horn of Africa agriculture ministers were expected to meet on Thursday to discuss the way forward, as well as the impact coronavirus is having on attempts to stop the locusts spreading. 

Last week, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said the situation in East Africa remains “extremely alarming”. Swarms are gathering and maturing in Ethiopia, Kenya and possibly Somalia, it said in an update. “This represents an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods because it coincides with the beginning of the long rains and the planting season.”  

One swarm of locusts can include as many as 150 million insects and travel as far as 150km a day. The UN says a swarm can eat as much food as 35,000 people. 

Sea crossing 

Locusts also lay eggs in the soil, which take two weeks to hatch. While efforts to stop the insects have been ongoing for months, the coronavirus pandemic has interfered with shipments of pesticides, protective clothing and surveillance technology. If not properly combatted, the swarms could increase 400 times by harvest season in June, the UN says. 

The locusts originally crossed the Red Sea from Yemen. Earlier this year, locust swarms reached South Sudan, Djibouti, Sudan, Eritrea, Tanzania and DR Congo, and caused Somalia to declare a state of emergency. In January, a swarm of locusts forced an Ethiopian Airlines plane to divert from its course.  

The UN says the new generation can form swarms 20 times the size of the previous ones. 

In March, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni said prayer had helped “neutralise” swarms of locusts in his country’s northeast. 

“Prayer is already working,” the 75-year-old said in a national address. “The locusts came but they ate nothing. They had already eaten a lot of things in Kenya and Somalia . . . They were just sitting in trees.”    

Humanitarian crisis 

“I think we gave them a lot of harassment,” said Samuel Kavuma, the general who has been directing the Ugandan army’s operations against the locusts. In a phone call with The Irish Times, Gen Kavuma said the swarms that came earlier this year didn’t even seem to have laid eggs, as expected. 

Speaking to the UN Security Council last week, David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, mentioned the locusts as one of the reasons 2020 could see the world facing the worst humanitarian crisis since the second World War. 

“We’re already facing a perfect storm,” Mr Beasley said, while also talking about changing weather patterns, the wars in Syria and Yemen, crises in South Sudan and the Sahel region, and the coronavirus pandemic. 

“In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries and, in fact, in 10 of these countries we already have more than one million people per country who are on the verge of starvation.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has a Desert Locust Situation Update page, which shows the problem extends all the way to Pakistan and India.

COVID-19 will almost double acute hunger by end of 2020

Via the UN's World Food Programme: COVID-19 will almost double acute hunger by end of 2020. Excerpt:

The COVID-19 pandemic will see more than a quarter of a billion people suffering acute hunger by the end of the year, according to new figures from the World Food Programme (WFP). 

Latest numbers indicate the lives and livelihoods of 265 million people in low and middle-income countries will be under severe threat unless swift action is taken to tackle the pandemic, up from a current 135 million. 

That is nearly double the number in the newly published Global Report on Food Crises 2020, which estimates that 135 million people in 55 countries currently face acute hunger as a result chiefly of conflict, the effects of climate change, and economic crises. That report was drawn up prior to the emergence of COVID-19 as a pandemic, and the contrasting figures provide a startling insight into the devastating potential of this virus. 

Concern is highest for those in countries across Africa as well as the Middle East, as the virus threatens lives and livelihoods along with the trading networks they rely on for survival. 

“These new projections show the scale of the catastrophe we are facing,” warned WFP chief economist Arif Husain. “We must make sure that tens of millions of people already on the verge of starvation do not succumb to this virus or to its economic consequences in terms of loss of jobs and incomes. 

“Just like in developed nations, governments are doing all they can to assist their people. We need to do the same for tens of millions of people.” 

The greatest worry is for people living in conflict zones and those forced from their homes and into refugee camps, with countries of concern including northeastern Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. 

“These are the people I’m most worried about,” said Husain. “They did not need COVID-19. Even without it their lives were hanging by a thread. They literally depend on us for their lives. If we cannot get to them for any reason they end up paying the ultimate price. We need to prioritize the people and make sure we’re there. Because if it’s not us, it’s no one else.”

South Dakota’s governor resisted ordering people to stay home. Now it has one of the nation’s largest COVID-19 hot spots.

Via The Washington Post: South Dakota’s governor resisted ordering people to stay home. Now it has one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hot spots. Excerpt:

As governors across the country fell into line in recent weeks, South Dakota’s top elected leader stood firm: There would be no statewide order to stay home.  

Such edicts to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, Gov. Kristi L. Noem said disparagingly, reflected a “herd mentality.” It was up to individuals — not government — to decide whether “to exercise their right to work, to worship and to play. Or to even stay at home.” 

And besides, the first-term Republican told reporters at a briefing this month, “South Dakota is not New York City.” 

But now South Dakota is home to one of the largest single coronavirus clusters anywhere in the United States, with more than 300 workers at a giant ­pork-processing plant falling ill. With the case numbers continuing to spike, the company was forced to announce the indefinite closure of the facility Sunday, threatening the U.S. food supply. 

“A shelter-in-place order is needed now. It is needed today,” said Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, whose city is at the center of South Dakota’s outbreak and who has had to improvise with voluntary recommendations in the absence of statewide action.  

But the governor continued to resist. Instead, she used a media briefing Monday to announce trials of a drug that President Trump has repeatedly touted as a potential breakthrough in the fight against the coronavirus, despite a lack of scientific evidence.  

“It’s an exciting day,” she boasted, repeatedly citing her conversations with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner. 

The piecemeal approach to combating the coronavirus in South Dakota offers a throwback to America’s not-so-distant past, the period around a month ago when governors were still leery of using their powers to shut down restaurants and bars or to order people, for the greater good, to stay at home.  

It also may offer a glimpse of the country’s near-term future, as pressure builds — not least from the president — to reopen after a weeks-long shutdown. Trump has been eager to get the economy on its feet again by the beginning of May after record rises in unemployment claims and dramatic falls in the stock market.  

Yet as South Dakota’s experience shows, no part of the country is immune to being ravaged by the virus. And rescinding orders that people stay at home — or declining to issue them, as in the case of South Dakota and four other states — offers plenty of peril. 

Reopening the country by May is “not even remotely achievable,” said TenHaken, who, like Trump and Noem, is a Republican. “We’re in the early innings of this thing in Sioux Falls.”

Already, the experience has been harrowing: As of early April, the city had relatively few cases. But over the course of last week, the numbers surged as the virus ripped through the city’s Smithfield Foods production plant, a colossus that employs 3,700 people — many of them immigrants — and churns out 18 million servings of pork product per day. 

On Monday alone, 57 more workers were confirmed to have positive diagnoses, bringing the total well above 300 — and making it one of the country’s largest clusters. Other major clusters include Cook County Jail in Chicago and the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.

Flight of the beekeepers: Nicaraguan workers crucial to Canada’s food supply chain are on their way

Via The Globe and Mail: Flight of the beekeepers: Nicaraguan workers crucial to Canada’s food supply chain are on their way. Excerpt:

A chartered plane carrying an unlikely combination of travellers is scheduled to depart Nicaragua for Canada on Monday: temporary foreign workers bound for commercial bee operations, and Canadians who had been stranded in Central America amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Flights out of the capital of Managua have been suspended as international travel slows to a near standstill, complicating efforts to bring workers into Canada to help manage the spring hive-building season – a vital time when bees reproduce and burgeon into healthy colonies. Led by a queen that lays up to 2,000 eggs each day, honey bees are good for more than their name implies; they are critical to the cross-pollination of fruits, vegetables and canola. 

To stave off a labour shortage that could impact the food supply chain and hurt the beekeeping industry, the Canadian Honey Council took matters into its own hands. At a cost of roughly $200,000, the council chartered a plane to fly 80 skilled workers from Nicaragua to Canada, touching down first in Calgary, and then continuing east to Saskatoon, Brandon and Toronto. 

“I’m expecting 10 guys, and it’s very important that they get here,” said Bryan Ash, a partner at Ash Apiaries, a large family run beekeeping operation that cross-pollinates orchards in B.C., and makes honey in Manitoba. He is one of the three dozen beekeepers who will repay the council for their portion of seats on the flight.  

The Nicaraguan labourers are among the upward of 60,000 seasonal farm and other temporary workers who come to Canada each year – an essential infusion of labour into the agriculture sector. The federal government last month allowed the entry of foreign workers, stipulating that they must quarantine for 14 days. But travel has been delayed because visa offices in foreign countries have been closed and commercial flights have become scarce. 

When the honey council started looking into chartering a flight, executive director Rod Scarlett reached out to Global Affairs Canada. “We have never been involved in any of this stuff, so I wanted to make sure we were covering our bases,” he said. “We also asked, ‘Do you need people coming out?’ ” The answer was yes. About 40 Canadians were expected to board the same flight.

US: Major meat plant is closing indefinitely over COVID-19

Via The New York Times: Coronavirus Live Updates: As Trump Pushes Timeline to Reopen Economy, Some Business Leaders Urge Caution. Excerpt:

Smithfield Foods said Sunday that its plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., one of the nation’s largest pork processing facilities, would remain closed indefinitely at the urging of the governor and mayor after 293 workers tested positive for coronavirus.  

The plant, which employs 3,700 workers and produces about 130 million servings of food per week, is responsible for about half of the state’s total number of cases. 

Meat production workers often work elbow to elbow, cleaning and deboning products in large open areas filled with hundreds of people. The closure at Smithfield follows the halting of production at several other poultry and meat plants across the country as workers have fallen ill with Covid-19.  

Many meat processing facilities have been hit hard by the virus. Three workers have died at a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Camilla, Ga. Tyson also shut a pork plant in Iowa after an outbreak there among workers. JBS USA, the world’s largest meat processor, confirmed the death of one worker at a Colorado facility and shuttered a plant in Pennsylvania for two weeks.  

In a statement announcing the closure, Smithfield’s chief executive warned that the closures were threatening the U.S. meat supply. The shuttered plant produces about 4 percent to 5 percent of the country’s pork, Smithfield said.  

“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” Kenneth M. Sullivan, the president and chief executive of Smithfield, warned in a statement. 

He continued, “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running.”  

Several meat processing corporations are offering cash bonuses to workers who continue showing up for work amid the pandemic. Workers have said they feel pressured to do so, even if they are feeling unwell. Smithfield said it would continue paying Sioux Falls plant workers for two weeks, “and hopes to keep them from joining the ranks of the tens of millions of unemployed Americans across the country.”

China’s farmers worried as COVID-19 stifles domestic agriculture

Via Sixth Tone: China’s Farmers Worried as COVID-19 Stifles Domestic Agriculture. Excerpt:

Farmers in China are facing a daunting year ahead as unprecedented quarantine measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus have disrupted much of the country’s food supply chain, long before meals reach the table. 

By Monday, COVID-19 had killed around 2,600 people in China and sickened nearly 80,000 worldwide. With China going to great lengths to bring the virus under control — including sealing off the epicenter and imposing strict restrictions on people’s movements within the country — farmers are among the many groups to be broadsided by the virus’ ripple effects. 

Roads into villages have been blocked with barricades, and poultry and livestock markets remain shuttered. Xinfadi, the largest farmer’s market in Beijing, said in its latest weekly report that only 13 slaughterhouses in four northern provinces have resumed operations because so few workers have returned from their hometowns after the Lunar New Year holiday. 

“The epidemic has created a situation where people can’t move and products can’t circulate,” Yang Jinghua, a researcher at the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told Sixth Tone. 

For smaller farms, the agricultural trade has effectively ground to a halt. With villages resorting to self-imposed isolation and looking inward to feed themselves, the pressure is mounting on poultry farmers as they cope with feed shortages and slackened demand. 

Chickens, for example, have shorter life cycles than other farm animals, reaching their market weight in as little as 40 days, so they must be sold and replaced more often. But the epidemic has disrupted the supply chain, cutting off sales channels and keeping past-their-prime chickens cooped-up at farms. Peng Jin, who manages a rural cooperative of over 50 livestock farmers in Dajing Township, in the central Hunan province, said he and his fellow farmers are left with more than 20,000 chickens that they’re having a hard time getting rid of.  

“The feed can’t come in, and the chickens can’t be shipped out and sold — they’re all stuck at home,” Peng told Sixth Tone. If the 20,000 chickens remain at their farms for much longer, Peng is worried the co-op won’t have sufficient resources to breed the next batch of hatchlings. “Then we must be prepared for half a year’s blank period,” he said.  

A farmer in the northern Hebei province said that roadblocks in his village had made it difficult for him to sell eggs, which he would previously collect from fellow villagers and take elsewhere to sell. “The price is quite low,” said the farmer, surnamed Li. “Now, my earnings are basically just enough to cover costs.”  

Prices for both chickens and eggs have been noticeably lower this year compared with 2019. If the poultry industry can’t be restored to normal soon, the effects are likely to linger into the second and third quarters, an official from China’s agriculture ministry said last week.

COVID-19: Tuesday morning in China

Via the Global Times: Real-time update on coronavirus outbreak. Excerpt:

10:50 am Feb 25  

Starting from Monday, Qingdao has arranged designated vehicles to shuttle all foreign visitors arriving in the city, to their homes, except those requiring quarantine or observation. Designated hotels will be arranged for visitors on short-term trips or business travels  

10:37 am Feb 25  

Hunchun, a city bordering China and North Korea in northeast China’s Jilin, imposes 14-day mandatory quarantine for all foreign returnees to the city amid COVID-19 outbreak. Designated quarantine zones will be arranged for those without a permanent residence. 

10:35 am Feb 25  

About 60% of Chinese firms face operational difficulties due to the novel coronavirus. 6% of them face bankruptcy and 20% see a temporary suspension. Just 5% see no obvious impact from COVID-19: survey 

10:10 am Feb 25  

Chinese stocks sink following global market nosedive! The benchmark Shanghai market was down 1.62%  and Shenzhen had fallen 1.99 % at opening, after global markets saw some of the sharpest overnight falls in years, reportedly due to the spreading of coronavirus 

10:01 am Feb 25  

"He was overwrought for preparing for the election," Consul general of Slovakia in Shanghai refutes reports that claimed Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini is infected with the COVID-19: reports. 

9:58 am Feb 25  

The local COVID-19 prevention and control authority of Jiang'an District in Wuhan said  the rumor that “120 elderly were infected in a nursing home” is untrue. It said in fact 8 people had tested positive and have been sent to hospital for treatment. 

9:50 am Feb 25  

Tianjin University has successfully developed an oral vaccine to protect against COVID-19. Huang Jinhai, the professor who led the project, has taken four doses without any side effects. The team is now looking for partners to promote clinical trials 

9:43 am Feb 25  

The National Development and Reform Commission will ensure supplies of daily necessities in Hubei, guarantee daily supplies for 30 days are stored in the province. Another 10,000 tons of pork from China’s National reserves will be sent to Hubei.

How Britain became a nation of stockpilers: 'It just feels like something is going to give'

Via The Guardian: How Britain became a nation of stockpilers: 'It just feels like something is going to give'. Excerpt:

James Blake, the owner of Europe’s largest emergency food supplier, is one of the few people to be doing good business out of coronavirus. Are you planning to hole up indoors while a pandemic, natural disaster or terrorist attack runs its course? Blake’s company – Emergency Food Storage UK – has got you covered, but it’s not cheap: £385 will buy you one month of food, as long as you like freeze-dried macaroni cheese and chicken-fried rice. 

The prices aren’t putting Blake’s customers off. Since coronavirus emerged in China in December, he has been swamped with orders. In the last two weeks alone, Emergency Food has done as much business as it normally would in six months. Which is bad news for anyone thinking now might be a good time to stock up on some of its powdered custard apple crunch, because it’s all gone. 

“This is all we have left,” says Blake, gesturing around his half-empty warehouse. (He has insisted I keep the location secret, for security reasons. He has also refused to tell me his age, for reasons that are unclear.) The shelves are mostly bare, save for some tins of spaghetti bolognese, chilli and three-bean stew. In the corner are water filtration devices: a jerrycan with built-in antibacterial filter, and smaller, more portable bottles.  

We are actually in the smaller warehouse Blake uses to house his personal supplies, and orders that have yet to be filled. There was no point in showing me his main warehouse, because it’s empty.

These are busy times for his company, which has also had to contend with public fears about Brexit affecting the food supply. The £375 Brexit Box – featuring 60 main meals, a water filter and firestarter – flew off the shelves last year. Blake sources his food from a factory in Lancashire, which is working 24/7 to replenish his stock. In addition to shipping Brexit Boxes direct to consumers, Blake says that Emergency Food also supplies government departments, although he won’t reveal which. And you’ll find his freeze-dried emergency food on the RRS Sir David Attenborough, commonly known as Boaty McBoatface. 

“We’re not looking at a zombie apocalypse situation,” Blake admits. “Most short-term issues can be resolved in time.” Still, “We should all just be a little more self-reliant.” 

Self-reliance is the organising principle of Blake’s life: he grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons, and food preparation is an integral part of Mormon life. As a child, Blake would watch his mother store and preserve food. “Wheat was a big thing,” he says. “We would always have a few containers.” Although he left the Mormons in his 20s, some habits are hard to shake: opening a ceiling hatch, Blake reveals a secret stash of foil-lined bags of wheat. 

He argues that the people buying from him are the opposite of selfish. “You’re protecting the food in the supermarket, by purchasing your supplies from a different point.” He doesn’t like the word stockpiling – but prepping won’t work either. “Prepping has a negative connotation perpetuated by the media,” he says, “because they see preppers as often quite crazy.” He favours the term “food storage”, which he sees as more neutral. 

“If you think about what’s in your kitchen cupboard today,” he says, “it’s a few tins of beans, some manky rice. You might be able to cobble together food for a few days. Imagine a disaster lasting weeks before infrastructure is back up.” 

It’s not just Blake’s tills that are ringing. Purveyors of antibacterial hand gel, dust masks and even facial respirators are doing brisk business. Inevitably, prices have rocketed as a result of coronavirus fears. “I’m panicked like crazy because I want to protect the people I love,” says Andrew (not his real name), a 30-year-old property developer from Essex. “But I don’t know if I want to spend £50 on a full face mask.” Perhaps he should have a word with 49-year-old Kerry Collinson, from Somerset, who already has a large box of face masks, which she purchased earlier this month. 

What Andrew has stockpiled is £100 worth of food and water. And he is planning to buy more. “I know it sounds crazy,” he says, “but I’d sooner spend the money now and have it and not need it.” And he is planning to buy more.

Coronavirus fears see Singapore’s ‘Total Defence’ plan clouded by weekend of total anxiety

Via the South China Morning Post: Coronavirus fears see Singapore’s ‘Total Defence’ plan clouded by weekend of total anxiety. Excerpt and then a comment:

The photos began circulating in Singapore on WhatsApp groups and social media from Friday evening, of growing queues at supermarket checkout counters, grocery carts pushed by people in surgical masks piled high with instant noodles and shelves emptied of fresh chicken, pork, rice and toilet paper. 

By Saturday morning, online grocery store Redmart had sold out most of its toilet paper and posted a notice saying it had limited delivery slots due to a sudden increase in orders. The website of NTUC Fairprice, Singapore’s largest supermarket chain, went offline temporarily. 

Meanwhile, scalpers were reselling items at marked-up prices on mobile marketplace Carousell. 

The public panic fuelled by the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 40,000 people and killed 910, has prompted “zombie apocalypse” jokes on social media. It has also called into question Singapore’s resilience and social cohesion at a time of heightened stress. 

What triggered the anxiety was Singapore raising its pandemic preparedness alert level from yellow to orange on Friday evening. The orange alert indicates the spread of the virus is being contained, and was the same alert used in 2009 for the H1N1 flu pandemic. Authorities said it would also have been used in 2003 for the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) had the current alert system been in place. 

BRACING FOR THE WORST 

In response to the surge of panic buying, NTUC FairPrice’s chief executive Seah Kian Peng urged calm and stressed there was no need to stockpile food. 

However, 48-year-old Tao Ming, who was at a FairPrice store along Upper East Coast Road on Saturday, was determined to prepare for the worst. He was with his young son and mother and said he had already bought two extra fridges from a secondhand store to freeze food. Carrying two trolley bags, the family was looking to buy eggs, vegetables, meat, and cleaning essentials. 

“I saw that a few people came to Singapore and got infected,” he said. “This means it’s very serious and you don’t know who has got it. I’m worried it will spread further so it’s better to prepare first,”he said, adding that he did not rush out to buy masks when the outbreak happened and now only had 20 for his family of five. 

This reminds me vividly of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, when Los Angeles Civil Defence officials warned us through TV news to have two weeks' supplies of food on hand. The Ralphs supermarket on Hollywood Boulevard was jammed. I saw people with multiple carts, running up bills of around $110--equivalent to $930 today. 

A week later the crisis was over and everyone tried to return their stuff for a refund. No luck. At least they all got to eat it, rather than be vaporized.

 

In Singapore, the crisis may take a little longer to resolve.

$9 cabbages, emergency pork: Coronavirus tests China on food

Via The New York Times: $9 Cabbages, Emergency Pork: Coronavirus Tests China on Food. Excerpt:

SHOUGUANG, China — Along the roads leading into the small eastern city of Shouguang, workers in hazmat suits stop cars and take passengers’ temperatures.  

The fever checks are mandatory at offices, too. Whole neighborhoods have been barricaded off to nonresidents. All the hotels are shut. 

Shouguang is 500 miles away from the epicenter of the coronavirus. But the tight precautions reflect the city’s vital importance to China: This is where the country gets its vegetables.

The virus crisis is testing China’s ability to feed its 1.4 billion people, one of the Communist Party’s proudest achievements. Cooped up at home and fearful that the epidemic could last weeks or even months, families across China are hoarding provisions, making it harder for shops and supermarkets to keep fresh food in stock. Many places have closed off roads to passing traffic, slowing truck shipments and raising freight costs. 

Chinese officials have vowed to keep food flowing to Wuhan, the inland city of 11 million at the center of the outbreak. Shouguang, one of the country’s biggest hubs for growing, trading and shipping vegetables, has begun donating produce by the truckload to the locked-down city. 

Officials are on alert for signs of strained supplies throughout the rest of the country. Retail prices for fresh food have crept up in many places. The Shouguang vegetable price index, a widely watched daily gauge, rocketed to a multiyear high last week. Poultry farmers are warning that supplies of chicken feed are running low because of transport restrictions and millions of birds could die as a result.  

As if one dangerous disease was not enough for China right now, the national government over the weekend reported a “highly pathogenic” outbreak of bird flu at a chicken farm in Hunan Province. Some 4,500 chickens had died, and 17,000 were culled preemptively.  

Grocery bills in China were already climbing in recent months as an epidemic of swine fever ravaged the nation’s hog population. Rising consumer prices played a role in the protests that culminated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and the government has worried about inflation ever since. 

Hence Beijing’s herculean efforts to keep food moving as the coronavirus brings parts of China’s economy to a near halt.  

The Ministry of Agriculture has ordered the farm industry to increase output “by every possible means” while also keeping prices “basically stable.” The authorities have made a show of punishing stores that gouge consumers — one supermarket received a $70,000 fine for selling cabbage at $9 a head, according to official news media.