Questions to Stimulate Discourse Regarding A Collapse in Food Distribution Systems

Michael McDonald’s Original E-Mail

From: Michael McDonald
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 5:48 AM
To: John T. Hoffman; Tom McGinn
Cc: Ross, Robert G; Linton Wells; Samuel Bendett; David A Hastings; Gresalfi, Michael; Timothy Siftar; Rahul Gupta; Luis Kun; Carl Taylor; gavin; Tim Stephens; Christine Springer; Lyerly, William; Gavin Mcgregor-Skinner; Ray Shirkhodai; Allen Clark; David Franz; Gary Vroegindewey
Subject: Questions to Stimulate Discourse Regarding A Collapse in Food Distribution Systems

John, Tom, and colleagues, 

I will be interacting with food distributors, state emergency managers, a state food council, and other food and emergency management stakeholders regarding preparations for a massive food crisis in the U.S.  They have asked for a series of general questions for stimulating a discussion about their management and governance in severe crises associated with food.  I would like to have your input into the framing of this discussion.  Many of the same questions need to be directed at medical supply distributers as well.  Here is the first draft series of my questions:

1) Do you have the tools that you want to face large-scale social crises impacting the food industry, the global food distribution, and/or the U.S. food distribution system?

                1.1)  a Katrina-like (naturally-occurring crisis, such as prolonged extreme bio or weather event impacting food supply) in the US food industry within your region?

                1.2)  a Deep Water Horizon (socio-technical collapse) event in the US food industry?   

                1.3)   a EuroZone collapse while the U.S. hits an economic cliff creating discontinuities in food distribution? 

                1.4)  a 9/11-like strategic, but prolonged, attack on the American food supply system the origin of which is not discoverable for three to seven months? 

2) Would you be open to engaging the use of new advanced analytics, communication and computing tools and methods to ensuring more robust food distribution during severe crises?

3) Have you exercised a massive impact on the food industry during a rapid large economic downturn due to a lapse in food security in a serious game? 

4) Have you exercised scenarios in which countries are defaulting on their agreements to provide grain and other food supplies into the global food distribution system based upon rapid escalation in global food prices?

5) Have you exercised scenarios in which there is a rapid and prolonged shift in demand regarding food, given a massive memetic (cultural) shift in the public stemming from specific events regarding food safety and security?

6) What are your assumptions about management and governance regarding food insecurity problems in scenarios of rapid food insecurity within the U.S.?

7) Are you prepared with agile logistics systems, if the current distribution systems begin to falter under severe, prolonged social crisis?

8) What are your assumptions regarding what Congress will do in terms of regulations regarding the food industry under severity level 3, 4, and 5 crises?

                8.1)  Severity Level 3:  Areas of the Food Distribution Falters

                8.2)  Severity Level 4:  The American People Lose Trust in Food Distribution Systems

                8.3)  Severity Level 5:  The US Faces a Collapse in Food Production or Food Demand Due to Ecosystem Collapses or Collapses in Social Ecology

Once the regional serious game is complete with a few hundred people, we are looking at engaging 100,000 people in a similar serious game scenario at the national level to test the resilience of U.S. communities under similar scenarios involving food and water systems through the U.S. Resilience Summit.

Any thoughts? 

Mike 

Michael D. McDonald, Dr.P.H. 

President and Executive Director

Health Initiatives Foundation, Inc.

Executive Director 

Haiti Race to Resilience public /private consortium

Phase II Cholera Epidemic Management Initiative

Haiti MPHISE                                                                        http://haiti.mphise.net/

Haiti Resilience System                                           http://www.haitiresiliencesystem.org/