COVID-19 has severely tested the global food system, revealing its weaknesses. The pandemic has caused surpluses in some countries, due to lack of exports, and the specter of scarcity in others. Concerns about food amplify fears of contagion, connecting personal experiences to geopolitical and trade tensions.
2020 will be recollected as the year of COVID-19, a pandemic that has caused hundreds of thousands of victims, forced millions of people into quarantine for months, and caused a global economic crisis, the consequences of which will be felt for years. The pandemic will also be remembered for its connection with dangers whose origin has been identified with a specific type of food consumption (wild animals) in a specific area of the world (China), consequently assuming strong geopolitical values against the background of brewing trade wars between China and other countries, especially the US.
The first group of cases of this coronavirus has been linked to bats or pangolins sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, where wild animals are suspected of having been kept in poor hygiene conditions, which allowed the virus to jump on to humans. This is not a novel occurrence. The SARS virus, which caused more than 800 victims worldwide in 2002, is also believed to have originated from bats and then spread among civet cats in another Chinese market for wildlife sold to China for food.
Despite the fact that China has closed the markets specialized in the sale of wild animals for food use, this commerce is still widespread in different parts of the world. Hunting and selling exotic species is not uncommon in various corners of the world as a collateral activity taken up to make up for lack of employment or low remunerations. For example, some of these markets continue to exist in Indonesia; Tomohon market on the island of Sulawesi is perhaps the best known. The development of new pathogens is a real risk; however, it clashes with the traditions of populations who appreciate animals such as bats, civets, lizards and snakes, also because sometimes they attribute them medicinal properties.
These food customs have been identified as one of the main causes of the transfer of infectious diseases from animal to human species, together with the penetration of human activities such as deforestation and mining in wild areas. However, we can’t forget that the commodification of wild animals does not only take place for cultural reasons. It can also be an expression of elitist behavior that celebrates access to exclusive, difficult to obtain or prohibited objects: the list of protected animals that are still hunted and sold at very high prices (also in the Global North) is unfortunately long.
Right when China seemed to have managed to control the virus, a new outbreak has developed around the Xinfadi wholesale market in Beijing, where fish, fruit, and vegetables are sold (and not exotic species). Initially, news spread that the virus had been found on a cutting board used for imported salmon: the resurgence of the pandemic was immediately attributed to external agents, increasing the climate of mistrust and nationalism in the country, under attack for its mismanagement of the first phases of the pandemic. Despite rumors about salmon being denied, consumers have stopped buying it, with enormous economic damage to exporting countries such as Norway and Chile, and have been avoiding restaurants serving fish, with significant repercussions on the hospitality sector, which has just started recovering after the lockdown. Moreover, China is putting a stop to imports of US meats from the plants that were tai ted by coronavirus. At the same time, calls to boycott Chinese food are emerging in India, following the border clashes.
This is just an example of how the global food system has been put to the test. Upending the usual flow of goods and labor, the pandemic has caused surpluses in some countries and fear of scarcity in others. The French government has encouraged its countrymen to eat more cheese and to use the hashtag #fromagissons (we act for cheese) in their posts on social media. Belgians have been invited to consume more frites to support local potato production, while the British have been prompted to organize steak nights to maintain a certain level of consumption of beef. The local production of stilton, one of the most iconic British products, is in crisis because of the closure of bars and restaurants and the freeze in tourism and hospitality. The Polish government has published a list of “non-patriotic” dairy farms that have imported milk from other countries.
Immediate repercussions of the pandemic have become visible all over the international food trade. For example, China reacted to Australia’s request for clarification on the genesis of the virus by threatening to reduce beef imports and to impose 80% tariffs on Australian barley. Russia has decreed an embargo on exports of wheat, rye, barley, and corn, hoping to limit any spike in domestic prices. Many agricultural businesses that use immigrant labor (both legally and illegally) have been impacted from border closures. To remedy this situation, special agreements have been signed between national governments: for example, limited numbers of Romanian immigrants have been flown to Germany to harvest fruit and vegetables. In Poland, farmers asked the government to ease border restrictions to allow Ukrainian seasonal worker to come into the country; such an easing would also allow Polish workers to participate in German agricultural activities, which pay much higher wages than they would get at home.
An experiential dimension as intimate and full of emotional charge as eating has become a further cause for anxiety about the impending presence of infectious agents coming from the outside, uncontrollable, subtle, and extremely dangerous. In fact, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint the origin of a pandemic. For example, the so-called “Spanish” influence that killed over forty million in 1918 may have started in the United States, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or China. For this reason, debates and doubts about the origin of a virus often go beyond scientific research to acquire political value: they turn into ideological tools with considerable impact. Sometimes we may even forget that advanced animal husbandry, if applied poorly, leads to the development of viruses and bacteria that are increasingly resistant to antibiotics. It is easier to blame other for pandemics, outsourcing the sense of danger and focusing it on food traditions and customs that are perceived as foreign, incomprehensible and sometimes backward, if not barbaric.
The fear of contagion becomes particularly powerful and effective when it is strengthened and amplified by experiences – now globally shared – of quarantine and social distancing, which are profoundly changing interactions between individuals, families, communities, and even entire nations. The fear of contagion gets amplified around food, connecting personal life to geopolitical and trade tensions.