Perdue: Pandemic Stresses The Importance Of The Food Supply Chain

USDA head Sonny Perdue was recently asked about the coronavirus pandemic, and the effect it has had on country, both farmers and everyday Americans.

"Every crisis has its own language if you think about it and who in America thought about food supply chain prior to now?" Perdue said.

"We had a production scheme, a very efficient, synchronized, integrated, sophisticated delivery system both for the production and the processing and the logistics and the delivery to the different sectors," Perdue noted. "One being the institutional setting, this being restaurants and other common feeding areas and one being to the consumer through retail, most mostly in grocery chains."

He added that before the pandemic, more than 50% of the food Americans consumed was consumed outside of the home.

"It’s USDA’s role to be flexible and to move very quickly at realigning these dislocations and misalignments that ee had in the supply chain."