HOW DO WE AVOID FOOD WASTE IN AN EMERGENCY?

- The scale shown in this picture is massive, and may be meant for international markets.

- This global trade usually runs on a JIT (just in time) economic system. Notthing is stored for long and shipping and trucking is organized to get the food where it needs to be sold...just in time.

- This involves a very large supply chain to all parts of the system. 

- The ships and trucks must be refrigerated, their fuel must come from somewhere, workers at all levels have to be paid. 

- There's a long chain of parts to this system of supply, and the chain is as strong as its weakest link. If one link fails, the entire chain fails. 

- This system is run on volume at global scale

Can Jamaica Have More Of A Local System? 

- There's a welcome trend toward importing less foreign food, and growing more locally.

- Hotels, restaurants, supermarkets are plentiful here, and could normally buy the local food.

- But in an emergency where most of them close down, the food would need to be stored, even if eventually given away?

- There is very poor storage of food in Jamaica now, and farming people are calling for a better arrangement.

- Distribution to the needy needs some kind of structure where you know where and when to distribute food.

- The distribution costs money--workers, gas, time.

Proper Storage May Be The Key

- There is storage for normal times--short periods

- But what about storage in an ememrgency for longer?

- Does there need to be redundant storage?

- In and emergency, we might lose electricity.

- Could ice help? 

- How do you rationalize the cost of producing and storing ice just for the occasional emergency?

- You would need a whole lot of redundant ice boxes too, but that could be the easy part. 

- Jamaica needs a lot of sored electricity for emergencies. Batteries to store solar energy are WAY expensive, and would be in short supply in an extreme pandemic-like situation (or economic calamity).