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usafphantom2 · 2 years

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Former UK pilots are being attracted to help Chinese military pilots

Authorities say former British military pilots are being recruited through intermediate headhunters.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 10/18/22 - 20:37 in Military

Former British military pilots are being attracted to China with large sums of money to pass on their knowledge to the Chinese military, it is said.

It is believed that up to 30 former United Kingdom military pilots were trained members of the Air Force of the China People's Liberation Army (PLAAF).

The United Kingdom is issuing an intelligence alert to alert former military pilots against working for the Chinese military.

Attempts to search for pilots are underway and have recently increased, Western authorities say.

A spokesman for the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense said that the training and recruitment of pilots do not violate any current UK law, but authorities from the United Kingdom and other countries are trying to prevent the activity.

According to the same anonymous employee, the pilots were being recruited through intermediate headhunters and are teaching PLA students at a private training center in South Africa, the Test Flying Academy of South Africa, or TFASA.

PLAAF Hongdu L-15 Falcon training jet.

The company's website states that it is "always looking to recruit aviation professionals in many projects", but does not provide specific details of Chinese military contracts.

On the other hand, the company says its flight test crew “has operational and testing experience with a multitude of types,” including the Typhoon, Gripen, Hawk, Tornado, Mirage F1 and “several fighter training planes, including Hongdu L-15 and K-8 aircraft.” The last two are jet coaches operated by PLA, among others.

TFASA website shows Su-30 and L-15 aircraft used by PLA.

“It is a profitable package that is being offered to people,” said a Western authority, adding that “money is a strong motivator.” It is believed that some of the packages reach £237,911 (US$ 270,000).

Retired British pilots are being used ?? to help understand the way Western planes and pilots operate, information that can be vital in the event of any conflict, such as that of Taiwan.

“They are a very attractive group of people to convey this knowledge,” said a Western authority. "Western pilots of great experience are needed to help develop the tactics and capabilities of the Chinese military air force."

A spokesman for Prime Minister Liz Truss said the government is taking “decisive measures” to stop this search for pilots and “protect our national security”.

He pointed out the review of confidentiality clauses and confidentiality agreements in contracts signed by former military personnel.

Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said the United Kingdom “must change the law” to ensure that pilots do not transmit information to China in the future.

"Certainly it does not match my understanding of service to our nation - even in retirement - to go to work with a foreign power, especially one that challenges the interest of the United Kingdom so much," he told BBC Radio 4's Today program.

The United Kingdom first became aware of a small number of cases of former military pilots recruited in 2019, who were treated on a case-by-case basis. The COVID-19 pandemic slowed down attempts, when traveling to China was almost impossible but attempts have now increased, leading to this alert.

Apparently, Western air crew in front of a FTC-2000 jet coach in an image from the TFASA website.

“We saw that this has increased significantly – it’s an ongoing problem,” a Western authority said in a briefing to journalists. The current service personnel are being targeted, but it is believed that none have accepted.

Pilots have experience in jets and fast helicopters and come from the entire army and not just from the Royal Air Force. They flew Typhoons, Jaguars, Harriers and Tornadoes.

It is believed that the F-35 pilots are not involved, although it is believed that China is interested in them. Some of the pilots are in their 50s and left the armed forces some time ago. Pilots from other allied nations were also targeted.

Speaking to Sky News, the Minister of the United Kingdom Armed Forces, James Heappey, said that in the future, the law would be amended to make it illegal to ignore alerts of similar threats, although it is not clear how this would be applied. "Don't go train foreign air forces without checking with the MOD if they are a foreign air force that we want to see you train, it would be a good rule," Heappey said.

There is no evidence that any pilot has violated the Official Secrets Act or has committed any crime. The purpose of the alert is to try to prevent the activity and inform the current team and industry partners and also remind staff of their obligations to protect confidential information.

“We are taking decisive steps to prevent Chinese recruitment schemes that try to hunt down former pilots of the United Kingdom armed forces to train People's Liberation Army personnel in the People's Republic of China," said a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense.

"All servers and former employees are already subject to the Official Secrets Act, and we are reviewing the use of confidentiality agreements and non-disclosure agreements throughout the Defense, while the new National Security Law will create additional tools to face contemporary security challenges - including this 1."

Source: BBC

Tags: Military AviationPLAAF - Chinese Air ForceRAF - Royal Air Force/Royal Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. It has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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whattheabcxyz · 2 years

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2022-07-04

Singapore

Contactless buttons on trial at 4 pedestrian crossings

Workplaces here not reinstating mandatory regular testing yet despite new COVID-19 wave

A before & after look at how life here was affected by the pandemic

Prices of new leasehold condos in suburbs set to rise

Green hydrogen being considered as potential energy source with setting up of $25m research institute here

Man on trial for helping China businessman buy restricted properties in East Coast

CPF members' balances & interest earned hit new high last year; amount withdrawn for housing rises

Lawrence Wong says government’s approach to help is to offer short-term relief and support longer-term restructuring, & that $6.6b package to cushion impact of GST hike will be enhanced if need arises

Transport

Singapore: Bus & train services to be extended on eve of Hari Raya Haji

Fuel pump prices in Singapore “fall” further over weekend

People

90-year-old Bowie Wu says the secret to his good health is walking

Environment

UK: Huge mass of flushed used wet wipes has formed "island” that has changed course of Thames River

Education

Pandemic spurs rise in online learning among Singaporeans

Society

At least 3 killed in Copenhagen mall shooting - suspect arrested

Woman is shot dead by man after hurling water at McDonald’s staff - violence begets violence!

Travel

^ More about the little-known UNESCO World Heritage site of Lenggong in Malaysia

Singaporeans still travelling despite global resurgence of COVID-19 cases & missing luggage at airports worldwide - idiots be idiots... some people are gluttons for punishment, which I’m ok with as long as they don’t pull down others along with them!!!

Gossip

Terence Cao says he’s “forced” to do live-streaming due to lack of acting jobs - bugger off, Terence, kthx... society’s better off without you

Lindsay Lohan weds financier at 36

#gossip #travel #society #education #environment #people #transport #singapore

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Gigantic KAWS hot air balloon to take flight over major world cities Written by Oscar Holland, CNN He has appeared in the foothills of Mount Fuji and in the middle of downtown Taipei. His reclining figure has even floated placidly on Seoul’s Seokchon Lake and in Hong Kong’s famous Victoria Harbour. Now, American artist KAWS’ signature character, Companion, is set to take to the skies across several world cities — as a hot air balloon. On Monday, KAWS, whose real name is Brian Donnelly, announced plans to fly his huge new sculpture above major cities in countries including Australia, China, Turkey and Spain. The exact schedule will be dictated by demand for flight packages, which will see groups of two or three ascend in the balloon for an as-yet-undisclosed price. The hot air balloon pictured on a flight in Bristol, UK. Credit: @rkrkrk Images from a recent test flight near Bristol, UK — a city known for hosting one of Europe’s largest hot air balloon festivals — show an inflated Companion covering his eyes as he soars high above the ground. At 42 meters (138 feet), the floating artwork is about as tall as a 15-story building. As well as offering a unique experience for fans, Donnelly said he wanted to provide a surprising moment for people on the ground. “It really will be an unexpected thing in the sky,” he said on a call from New York City. “To have a work that suddenly interrupts your sight line for a few minutes, going through different cities in the world, is, for me, very exciting.” The hot air balloon is about as tall as a 15-story building. Credit: @rkrkrk Navigating Covid restrictions KAWS, who started out as a graffiti artist, now straddles the worlds of art, design and pop culture. He created Companion over two decades ago, with his other well-known characters including Accomplice, Chum, Bendy and BFF. In addition to large-scale sculptures, Donnelly has made his name through toys, merchandise and apparel collaborations with the likes of Nike and Uniqlo. His latest project is the result of an ongoing partnership with Hong Kong creative studio AllRightsReserved. The hot air balloon will spend approximately one month in each chosen city, beginning in late 2021. Flight packages, which come with a certificate, uniform and KAWS collectible, can be purchased using various cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, organizers confirmed. The hot air balloon’s “world tour” will begin at the end of 2021. Credit: @rkrkrk Donnelly said that the project offered a way for him to contend with the restrictions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. “As an artist we’re just trying to navigate around the situation,” he said. “So many things have gotten canceled, and there are so many different considerations with travel and meeting in groups. “I thought the balloon would be a great object to create something across a landscape that people can experience … rather than having an exhibition-type piece that everyone gathers around.” Related video: KAWS sculpture appears on Hong Kong waters The hot air balloon marks the latest installment of Donnelly’s “KAWS: Holiday” project, which has seen Companion figures floating over New York’s Times Square (as an augmented reality sculpture) and blasted more than 25 miles into the Earth’s stratosphere. The artist said he is yet to decide which frontier the character is headed to next. “When I do these projects it’s not like I’m searching out another medium to work in,” he said, adding: “Maybe we’re going to have to start going underwater.” Source link Orbem News #Air #balloon #Cities #flight #Gigantic #Hot #KAWS #Major #World

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sussex-nature-lover · 3 years

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Friday 1st January 2021

Review of the Year Q1 January, February, March 2020. Pre Pandemic Lockdown.

Hello, I’m wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy and Safe Year Ahead. We always say that don’t we, but boy does it have so much more meaning this time.

What can I say about the year just gone that hasn’t already been said? Well, they say a picture paints a thousand words so I’m going to choose some of my own photographs to illustrate the most positive things we experienced over the strangest year of our lives - the year of the Covid-19 coronavirus world pandemic, which is still raging today (and let’s hope I don’t get to say that again)

I’m cheating at the very beginning because I’m starting off by using a photo from Christmas 2019 when we had one of our usual type of trees in the Hall.

I’d usually decorate the Hall tree in the traditional red and gold

Below is the little tree that gained promotion this year, but in pink and white, silver and gold. That was a bit fancy for me, but the Owls liked it.

It put on some healthy growth throughout the year and played host to many perching little birds, mainly Blue, Great and Marsh Tits. I had to clear off all the cobwebs and take out all the bits of twig and leaf before it could come indoors.

And there it was, pressed into service. Every year in this house we’ve had at least two trees, a 7-8′ and a 5-6′ but this year, Little Tree was upgraded to the starring role. Hoorah Little Tree, you’ve done us proud. One of the best things to enjoy about the tree is all the memories that come with the decorations collected year after year from all around the world and some dating back to my Granny’s tree, although they’re looking rather delicate these days.

You can see our fairly recent tradition of perching ‘Travis’ the Christmas Pheasant in prime position just underneath the Angel. I think he looked fab this year, you can see him a bit more clearly than on a bigger tree.

January Garden Visitors: Sparrowhawk

As for January 2020, it brought some horrid bitterly cold, wet and windy weather. We were lucky on the 10th when we drove to Ms NW tE’s house and she put on a fantastic lunch that we both really enjoyed. That was the last time we sat down close at the table with anyone else outside of our own home and ate together* Last time we dined out-out was November 2018! Those were the days. 31st January 2020 was also the last time I had my hair cut - now it’s the longest it’s been since I was about half the age I am now and it might even be longer than then and still growing.

* Ms NW tY did pop around after work for supper in February and we meant to make that a fairly regular thing, but the only other time we got to eat together was when it was allowed outdoors in the Summer - sat at opposite ends of a very, very long table. That was weird.

January: sunset

The bad wet weather had started here in late October 2019 and we were caught in flooding in Cheshire. The Fire Brigade came to pump water off the road that we were sat on for a very long time. Much worse came with horrendous floods in Venice when some of the canals became unnavigable. World weather certainly made headlines in 2020 with flooding and raging fires devastating massive areas. The National Trust wildlife report I posted talks about the effects of the weather and climate change and what they’re trying to do to combat as much as they can.

I also see that in January we’d started to hear of Wuhan and to talk about hand washing. A friend’s sister is living in China and she’d got a flight booked to visit in April. Another friend said their lockdown and travel restrictions may be lifted by then. Little did we know.

Looking back at last year’s photos, pre blog, I was surprised I caught the Green Woodpecker in February, photo taken mid morning on the 16th.

This may be one of the last PP pictures I took (PP = Pre Pandemic) and it’s all the more remarkable because Storm Dennis had hit us.

On the 17th we went shopping for a care package for Ms NW tY who was sick and home alone. Raging fever, cough, felt like she had a chest infection and limbs like lead. Similar to what I had back in November 2019. It took seven months for me to feel tip top again, so who knows what on earth we had - not Covid obviously because the medical experts say it wasn’t over here then. They also said no need to wear face masks and children were impervious...

I’ll just leave those thoughts there.

February Garden Visitors: lots of Pheasants

Meanwhile we were starting to talk about handwashing - a lot, 20 seconds minimum with soap and hot water. Sing Happy Birthday to You all the way through and keep on washing. Haven’t heard that so much in a while actually.

...and toilet rolls. Any mention of a forthcoming lockdown and panic buying prompts shortages immediately. It was toilet rolls, rice, pasta and flour. I’m sticking with my illustration of handwashing using one of my favourite soaps. Portuguese Soap, hard to beat but prohibitively expensive nowadays. We just looked at that link and whistled, drawing in our breath and sighing. I’m going to be refilling that bottle with something altogether more modest. Of course, so much more choice now for something a bit different, especially closer to home. Kent Soap. I’ve been glad this year that I ask for nice soap as a gift if anyone wants to know what I’d like and we got some for Christmas too, so that’ll keep us going.

White Hyacinths and Freesias for fragrance lifting the bleak days

The pandemic seemed to get worse and we were getting alarmed. I last went into a supermarket early mid March. Since then I’ve only been in National Trust shops, the petrol station and the pharmacy. I first wore a face mask when we took the car for its MOT, also mid March. Staff looked at me as though I was a bank robber. When we went to collect the car later the same day there was a notice on the door ‘Only two customers allowed inside at any one time’ and news was starting to spread...about health precautions, not about me.

Soon MOT tests were suspended and the country was facing a lockdown. Since then we had a time when both of our cars’ batteries died. We’ve SORN (officially declared off road) one - it’s taking us all our time to keep the other ticking over.

March Garden Visitors: hungry Rabbits at the seed trays

I started to write my Blog. At first I just used Google Sheets for seven daily scribblings and then I moved to this platform. Blog Number 1 here with the urls of the first few entries at the end. Little did I know at that stage that I’d be writing every day at least once a day and still going.

As National Lockdown got underway as well as writing we all started walking again and looking at nature and baking - boy did we all embrace baking last year. There must’ve been a country-weight of Sourdough and/or Banana Bread attempted with varying degree of success...lucky Joe Wicks came on board to get everyone up and doing a bit of keep fit, People started working from home, hosted social lives by internet, online quizzes and memes became a thing, a really big Thing. If we were lucky our food shopping was delivered straight to our door, TV cookery shows were full of advice on what you could use if you couldn’t source what you really wanted.

Just as my football team was on course for its first ever Premier League Championship win, the season had to be suspended (13th March) hoping to resume in April. It was a vain hope, but as our manager Jûrgen Klopp said, health and safety is far more important than anything else...we can wait 😉

Sport around the world, like everything else, had to be put on pause.

The situation got worse and every Thursday night at 8pm we went outdoors and clapped for our carers as they battled on trying to get to grips with this new virus and people falling sick in huge numbers. It was a whole new way of life.

To be Continued

--------------

WEATHER NEWS:

Forecasters are warning of possible further chaos, because the same conditions behind the 'Beast from the East' in 2018 - one of the worst storms to hit the UK in living memory - are forming again high up in the atmosphere.

The 'sudden stratospheric warming' (SSW) event happens when the temperature in the stratosphere soars by 50C (122F). This 'reverses' Britain's wind pattern, from the warmer west out in the Atlantic to the east – and Siberia.

It can take two weeks for the effects of a SSW to be felt. This was the case in February 2018 with the infamous Beast from the East, which saw much of the UK gripped by travel chaos and school closures amid heavy snow.

^ Not to mention Hospital closures too, which meant my operation was cancelled.

New Year’s Day Read:

The Wildlife Trust Marine Review of 2020

This report is also covered by the Daily Mail which also includes photos, video and information from other regional trusts around the country.

Decoration from the Standen Courtyard Christmas Tree

Once again some absolutely beautiful handiwork, The Tree of Life. What better message for a brand new year.

The Tree of Life symbol represents our personal development, uniqueness and individual beauty. Just as the branches of a tree strengthen and grow upwards to the sky, we too grow stronger, striving for greater knowledge, wisdom and new experiences as we move through life.

Music for New Year from the Rivertree Singers

a community choral ensemble in Greenville, SC. USA

‘Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day’ Let’s hope so.

youtube

#nature photography #review marine NewYear music UKwildlife

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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The Trouble With Herd Immunity And Covid-19 Vaccines

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/the-trouble-with-herd-immunity-and-covid-19-vaccines/

The Trouble With Herd Immunity And Covid-19 Vaccines

CARDIFF, WALES – DECEMBER 08: A woman is given a Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at Cardiff and … [] Vale Therapy Centre on December 8, 2020 in Cardiff, Wales. Wales joined the other UK nations in rolling out the covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday, a rare moment of coordination after months of disjointedness in the four nations’ pandemic response. Wales introduced a 17-day “firebreak” lockdown in October and November to suppress the surge in covid-19 cases, but infections have continued to rise. (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

Now that an independent advisory panel has voted in favor of approving Pfizer’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine, it likely won’t be long before the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clears it for emergency use. Within 24 hours of their decision, millions of doses will be en route to health workers and long-term care residents across the country, beginning a mass vaccination campaign that many hope will end in herd immunity.

A vaccine will make a critical addition to our defenses against Covid-19—this much is certain. But our ability to achieve vaccination-induced herd immunity is less so. While that shouldn’t stop us from trying, it also shouldn’t stop us from practicing and promoting safety guidelines that can actually contain the disease. If Covid-19 is a raging forest fire, and a vaccine the firefighter dispatched to quell it, tried-and-true prevention measures—social distancing, mask wearing, and rapid testing among them—are how we protect ourselves until the trucks come rolling in.

The World Health Organization estimates that 65 to 70 percent of a given population must be vaccinated to halt the spread of disease. Once that threshold is crossed, the Covid-19 virus will have too few human hosts to choose from, driving down transmission rates dramatically. The process of getting there is simple enough in theory, but laborious and time-consuming in practice, involving many factors that can be enumerated endlessly but boiled down to four.

The first factor involves properties intrinsic to both the vaccine and the virus. While the Pfizer vaccine has proven safe and effective at reducing disease in more than 95 percent of clinical trial participants, whether it prevents infection and transmission remains unknown. Likely it will, but until this is evident, we must continue to take great care in protecting ourselves and others from contracting disease, even post-vaccination.

The second factor is the duration of protection—in other words, how long the protection conferred by a vaccine will last. Several studies, though not all, suggest that natural immunity to the Covid-19 virus is quick to fade. Vaccine-induced immunity might do nature one better, but that isn’t always the case. The immune response precipitated by the influenza vaccine, for instance, dwindles in four to six months. Only time will tell whether our protection against Covid-19 is as short-lived.

The third factor—social, rather than biological this time—is how many people take the vaccine. Due to a lack of data on how the Pfizer vaccine affects children and teens, Thursday’s FDA advisory panel deliberated its use in people 16 and over only. It may be that children below the age of 18, who make up about 23 percent of the population, aren’t cleared for vaccination for several months.

Until then, the onus is on adults—some of whom have their own reasons for abstaining. Whether their skepticism is fueled by fear-mongering from the anti-vax movement or, in the case of minority groups and in particular black Americans, a long history of malpractice in the name of medicine, the fact remains that 37 percent of adults in the United States would refuse to get vaccinated if the option were immediately available to them. Though trust, once lost, isn’t necessarily gone forever, it will take a concerted effort led by credible public figures and community leaders to undo damage that deep-seated.

The fourth and final factor is that the pandemic won’t be over in the United States until it’s over everywhere. For the rest of the world, mass vaccination will likely proceed at a much slower pace. If national public health interventions and global vaccine equity initiatives don’t pick up the slack, we can expect an influx of infections to continue streaming in from overseas, whether on the backs of travelers or packaging of frozen foods. Try as they might—and for the most part succeed—at keeping the virus at bay, China has traced hundreds of new infections to contaminated freight and other imported goods. While China has the wherewithal to quash even the smallest, most localized outbreaks with a barrage of testing, in many countries that slow drip is enough to trigger a flood.

Taking these factors into consideration, it becomes clear that vaccination-induced herd immunity isn’t a given. Whether it’s feasible, we probably won’t know for another couple of months. We do know that containing Covid-19 without a vaccine is. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Taiwan, where strict lockdowns and basic prevention measures were rigorously enforced, have barely a handful of new cases to report daily, if any at all. Vaccines are just one tool among many, and to end the pandemic by this time next year, we need to give it all we got.

Full coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus

From Healthcare in Perfectirishgifts

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blogwiseguy123world · 4 years

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Global Package Substrates Market Research Report 2020-2025

Summary – A new market study, titled "Global Package Substrates Market Insights, Forecast to 2026" has been featured on WiseGuyReports.

Since the COVID-19 virus outbreak in December 2019, the disease has spread to almost 100 countries around the globe with the World Health Organization declaring it a public health emergency. The global impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are already starting to be felt and will significantly affect the Package Substrate market in 2020.

Also read – https://www.abnewswire.com/pressreleases/package-substrates-market-2020-global-analysis-opportunities-and-forecast-to-2026_480265.html

COVID-19 can affect the global economy in three main ways: by directly affecting production and demand, by creating supply chain and market disruption, and by its financial impact on firms and financial markets.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought effects on many aspects, like flight cancellations; travel bans and quarantines; restaurants closed; all indoor events restricted; over forty countries state of emergency declared; massive slowing of the supply chain; stock market volatility; falling business confidence, growing panic among the population, and uncertainty about future.

This report also analyses the impact of Coronavirus COVID-19 on the Package Substrate industry.

The package substrate is directly used to carry the chip, which not only provides support, protection and heat dissipation for the chip, but also provides electronic connection between the chip and the PCB motherboard.

Based on our recent survey, we have several different scenarios about the Package Substrate YoY growth rate for 2020. The probable scenario is expected to grow by a -6.9% in 2020 and the revenue will be US$7.4 billion in 2020 from US$ 7.96 billion in 2019. The market size of Package Substrate will reach US$ xx in 2026, with a CAGR of xx% from 2020 to 2026.

According to Prismark data, the global packaging substrate market bottomed out in 2017, and it is expected that by 2022, it will reach a compound growth rate of 2.9% to reach US $ 7.74 billion. Different from the low growth rate of the global market, the output value of mainland China's packaging substrates has increased year by year after 2012, reaching US$ 1.29 billion in 2017 (mainland output value, including domestic and oreign capital, global share of 20%). estimated 2018-2022 The annual output value of mainland packaging substrates will maintain a compound growth of more than 12%, and the industry transfer trend is obvious.

The packaging process can be divided into the steps of wafer cutting, wafer bonding, gold wire bonding, plastic packaging, laser printing, cutting and bending, inspection and testing.

According to different substrate materials, package substrates can be divided into BT and ABF.

The BT substrate can avoid leakage current and popcorn phenomenon (impacted by moisture and high temperature) in semiconductor packaging testing.

The ABF material can meet the requirements of fine lines and small line widths in line with advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes. It is suitable for ICs with high pin count and high transmission. It is mostly used in PC products such as graphics chips, processors, and chipsets.

It accounts for about 70% of the global packaging substrate market. Although ABF has great potential, the use of ABF materials requires a large amount of equipment investment, a long customer certification cycle, and a high barrier to entry.

At present, semiconductor packaging is in the third stage of maturity and rapid growth, and it has entered the stage of large-scale production with major packaging forms such as BGA / CSP. At the same time, the fourth technological change with SiP and MCM as the main development direction is at the stage of incubation.

Package substrate products are diversified. From the perspective of output value distribution, in 2019, package substrates mainly include FCBGA / PGA / LGA, FCCSP, FCBOC and WBPBGA, WB CSP, RF & DigitalModule as the six main products in the package substrate market. Among them, FCBGA / PGA / LGA has a share of approximately 41% at most, and RF & DigitalModule has a minimum of approximately 13%.

The world's top ten packaging substrate manufacturers account for more than 80% of the market share, and the industry presents an oligopoly pattern. The top three global companies UMTC, Ibiden, and SEMCO are from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, respectively, accounting for 14.78%, 11.19%, and 9.9% of the global market

From the point of view of production, global carrier boards are mainly manufacturers in Taiwan (31%), Japan (20%), and South Korea (28%), accounting for about 80% of the global share.

The package substrate serves as a carrier for chips, and its downstream requirements are highly related to IC chips. The packaging substrate is an important branch of the PCB board, which belongs to the high-end market segment, with high density, high precision, miniaturization and thinness.

It covers various social and economic fields such as communications, industrial medical, aerospace, automotive electronics, and computers. The explosion of related science and technology represented by 5G and the Internet of Things will promote the rapid development of the entire semiconductor industry chain.

Among them, the most important downstream market belongs to the field of communication. In the field of communication equipment and mobile terminals, the demand for packaging substrates accounts for 8.95% and 26.36% of its total PCB demand, respectively.

This report presents the worldwide Package Substrates market size (value, production and consumption), splits the breakdown (data status 2014-2019 and forecast to 2025), by manufacturers, region, type and application.

This study also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.

The following manufacturers are covered in this report:

Ibiden

Shinko Electric Industries

Kyocera

Samsung Electro-Mechanics

Fujitsu

Hitachi

Eastern

LG Innotek

Simmtech

Daeduck

AT&S

Unimicron

Kinsus

Nan Ya PCB

ASE Group

TTM Technologies

Zhen Ding Technology

Shenzhen Fastprint Circuit Tech

Package Substrates Breakdown Data by Type

FCCSP

WBCSP

SiP

BOC

FCBGA

Package Substrates Breakdown Data by Application

Mobile Devices

Automotive Industry

Others

Package Substrates Production by Region

United States

Europe

China

Japan

South Korea

Other Regions

Package Substrates Consumption by Region

North America

United States

Canada

Mexico

Asia-Pacific

China

India

Japan

South Korea

Australia

Indonesia

Malaysia

Philippines

Thailand

Vietnam

Europe

Germany

France

Italy

Russia

Rest of Europe

Central & South America

Brazil

Rest of South America

Middle East & Africa

GCC Countries

Turkey

Egypt

South Africa

Rest of Middle East & Africa

The study objectives are:

To analyze and research the global Package Substrates status and future forecast，involving, production, revenue, consumption, historical and forecast.

To present the key Package Substrates manufacturers, production, revenue, market share, and recent development.

To split the breakdown data by regions, type, manufacturers and applications.

To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.

To identify significant trends, drivers, influence factors in global and regions.

To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Package Substrates :

History Year: 2014 - 2018

Base Year: 2018

Estimated Year: 2019

Forecast Year: 2019 - 2025

This report includes the estimation of market size for value (million USD) and volume (K sqm). Both top-down and bottom-up approaches have been used to estimate and validate the market size of Package Substrates market, to estimate the size of various other dependent submarkets in the overall market. Key players in the market have been identified through secondary research, and their market shares have been determined through primary and secondary research. All percentage shares, splits, and breakdowns have been determined using secondary sources and verified primary sources.

For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2018 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.

For more details - https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/5217506-global-package-substrates-market-insights-forecast-to-2026

About Us:

Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.

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ladystylestores · 4 years

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As China faces a backlash in the West, Xi needs Africa more than ever

With the traditional big donors to Africa, such as Europe and the United States, focused on containing the continued spread of the virus, Xi moved to position China, which has its own outbreak largely under control, as the global leader in health.

Xi committed to helping 30 hospitals in Africa, setting up a pan-African health authority on the continent and supporting an affordable vaccine there, once one has been found.

But Xi’s offerings weren’t just about taking the lead in Africa: they were about securing support at a critical and precarious juncture in Beijing’s relationship with the continent.

While no African head of state has yet publicly criticized China’s response to the virus, earlier this week the African group backed a European Union-drafted resolution co-signed by more than 100 countries calling for an independent inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic.

That comes after African ambassadors last month wrote an unprecedented joint letter to Beijing demanding answers for the mistreatment of African residents in China during the coronavirus crisis.

As the coronavirus leaves China increasingly isolated on the world stage, Xi’s speech made it clear how vital the support of African nations is to Beijing.

Important diplomatic allies

China’s diplomatic ties with African nations stretch back to the mid-20th century when Beijing befriended newly independent countries as it tried to position itself as leader of the developing world, and counter US and USSR influence during the Cold War era.

Since then, Africa has proved to be a critical diplomatic bloc for Beijing — the bid by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to expel the Republic of China (Taiwan) from the United Nations Security Council in 1971 succeeded largely because of the support of Africa, which provided 26 of the 76 votes it needed to win. That move allowed the PRC to take Taiwan’s position both on the General Assembly and as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

In subsequent decades, when China has faced fierce criticism from the West, African countries have continued to stand beside Beijing.

After the Tiananmen Square crackdown, China succeeding in persuading several African countries to sign an agreement saying the clashes, in which Chinese troops fired on and killed civilians, “permitted no foreign interference.”

As Western nations threatened to boycott Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Games over concerns of human rights abuses in China, African countries continued to support the event.

And more recently, as the US applied pressure on telecommunications company Huawei, accusing it of being a Trojan horse for the Chinese government, key African economies including Kenya and South Africa have welcomed its presence.

“Each time the US or the West ramps up its criticism of China, the Chinese government turns back to its long-time, all-weather friendship in Africa,” says Lina Benabdallah, assistant professor in politics at Wake Forest University, specializing in China-Africa relations.

“Beijing needs its African partners to boost its image that China is not isolated or without any friends on the international arena.”

As the United States in particular pushes the narrative that Beijing is to blame for the spread of Covid-19, Africa’s support is once again vital as Beijing pushes the counter-narrative that after beating the virus it is now a leader in global health.

In March and April, China exported 71 billion yuan ($10 billion) in medical supplies around the world, including about 28 billion masks, to help fight coronavirus.

But Beijng’s so-called mask diplomacy has received a mixed reception in the West — in March, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned about the “struggle for influence through spinning and the ‘politics of generosity.'”

In Africa, governments have welcome the aid.

“Africa is home to a plethora of developing countries desperate for support to combat the health and economic impact of Covid-19,” says Ovigwe Eguegu, a Nigerian international affairs analyst.

This is not the first time China has showed up to help Africa during a public health crisis. By November 2014, China had given 750 million yuan (then $123 million) in aid to the global Ebola response. While that was Beijing’s largest ever response to an international humanitarian crisis it was still no match for Western donors. The US, UK, and Germany donated more than $3.6 billion by December 2015.

But with the US and parts of Europe among the world’s worst coronavirus-hit countries in terms of case numbers, US President Donald Trump’s public call for a cut to WHO funding, and both Europe and the US suffering economically, some African states arguably have little option but to be welcome China’s assistance.

An early rupture in relations

Despite Beijing’s continued publicity drive, the pandemic affects African lives directly — and from the beginning of the crisis there were signs that the virus could fracture the China-Africa relationship.

In late February, there was uproar in Kenya when a China Southern Airlines landed in Nairobi from mainland China, which was still in the throes of the pandemic, and 239 passengers were allowed to disembark without testing

That sparked calls in the country for flights between China and Africa to be suspended while China got its outbreak under control.

In April, African ministers asked the G20 for an urgent $100 billion package, including $44 billion of debt relief. China, which is believed to hold about a fifth of African debt, according to the London-based Jubilee Debt Campaign, replied that it would act in line with other G20 nations, offering no preferential treatment to its long-time partner.

But the biggest threat to the relationship came in April when shocking images started pouring out of the southern city of Guangzhou, in China, of Africans there newly homeless, after being evicted by landlords and turned away from hotels due to fears Africans were to blame for a local coronavirus outbreak. The city began testing and quarantining all Africans, regardless of their travel history.

That prompted the unprecedented letter to Beijing from a collective described as “the African group of ambassadors.” While the Chinese government quickly moved to put out the crisis on a diplomatic level, outrage in Africa continues to simmer, and in Nigeria government ministers have proposed retaliatory measures, such as investigating the legal status of all Chinese in that country.

“The maltreatment of Africans in Guangzhou is a stain on the Africa-China relationship,” says Eguegu, the Nigeria-based international affairs analyst. “By focusing on Africa (at the WHA), President Xi appears to be signaling to Africans that Africa is a priority for China.

“That might reassure many African leaders, but (the) majority of Africans who were offended by the videos and pictures from Guangzhou won’t hear this speech.”

Before the crisis

Before the Covid-19 crisis hit, China’s investment in Africa seemed to be entering a new, more cautious phase.

After years of largesse, which saw $140 billion in loans extended to Africa between 2000 and 2018 for everything from new roads and ports to football stadiums and parliamentary buildings, Beijing had put the breaks on some infrastructure projects, and began adding firmer terms to others.

Most noticeably, after lending Kenya $3.6 billion for the first section of a railway line envisaged to connect to a yet-to-be-realized East African Railway Master Plan, Beijing has refused to finance the $3.5 billion next part of the line, saying the project was not economically viable due to debt concerns.

In Tanzania, President John Magufuli, rejected the Chinese conditions of financing for a port, which stipulated a ban on port development elsewhere in the country.

And while the 2018 Forum for China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), a triennial summit of African heads of state with China, saw China pledge $60 billion in aid, investment and loans to Africa, that number was a flattening of the curve of upwards Chinese investment.

Generally, Beijing had made a bigger pledge to Africa at each summit since FOCAC began in 2000. The pledge in 2015, for example, was three times the figure announced at the 2012 forum.

At the time, Jeremy Stevens, international economist for the Standard Bank Group, said many felt it would not be “politically appropriate” to pledge huge loans given the huge criticism China has faced from Western observers for allegedly overloading Africa with debt.

Next year, China and African states will reconvene for the next FOCAC, this time in Senegal, social distancing allowing, and no doubt the figure Beijing commits to will be closely analyzed, as African nations try to bring their economies through the havoc wreaked by the virus.

So far, the African continent itself does not appear to have been as severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic as the US, and its former colonial powers, such as the UK, France and Italy.

But as the virus rages in pockets of the continent — the vice-president of South Sudan now has the virus — it remains to be seen what the coronavirus toll will be there.

A true coronavirus crisis in Africa might not only test China’s performance as a world leader in health, but also how deep the equal friendship Beijing has repeatedly claimed to share with Africa truly runs.

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swedna · 4 years

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China’s biggest e-commerce firms Alibaba and JD have launched Covid-19 tests on their platforms. Users can book tests, the prices of which vary from city to city, in their neighbourhood labs, by visiting Taobao, Tmall and JD.com. It’s a huge leap in the country’s efforts to accelerate testing aggressively, as China’s e-commerce reach exceeds 70 per cent of its population.

Several cities and provinces in China have also announced that coronavirus testing would be available to citizens on a voluntary basis, instead of only those required to be tested by the government because of travel history, etc. Read more here.

Let’s look at the global statistics:

Total confirmed cases: 2,580,729

Change over the previous day: 84,735

Total deaths: 178,371

Total recovered: 4,136,464

Nations hit with most cases: US (825,306), Spain (208,389), Italy (183,957), France (159,300) and Germany (148,453).

Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center

US halts new green cards for two months: US President Donald Trump has announced he will halt the issuance of green cards for two months. Though he has stopped short of a sweeping immigration ban, he has hinted that additional restrictions could be imposed. Trump’s decision will affect thousands of would-be immigrants seeking to move permanently to the US, and further delay the already-cumbersome green card process. Read more here.

US to approve another relief package worth $484 billion: The US government will vote on Thursday to approve a $484-billion package of new pandemic relief funds. It will include $320 billion for the paycheck protection programme designed to help struggling small businesses keep their workers on the payroll. Read about it here and learn about the full break-down here.

World sees increased adoption of renewable energy: In the UK and Europe, renewables delivered 46 per cent of total power generation from March 10 to April 10, an annual increase of 8 per cent. In the US, coal now has a historically low share in the electricity mix (15 per cent). A decade ago, this was 50 per cent.

Coronavirus crisis could be followed by a hunger pandemic: The planet is “on the brink of a hunger pandemic" as it grapples with the coronavirus outbreak, David Beasley, chief of the UN's World Food Program told the UN Security Council. The countries at risk include Nigeria, Venezuela, Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, Kenya, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Read more here.

World events continue on cancellation spree: Spain called off the Running of the Bulls in July, the US scrapped the national spelling bee in June and Germany has cancelled Oktoberfest five months away, making it clear that the effort to return to normal could be a long and dispiriting process. Read more here.

Italy will implement some sort of re-opening plan from May 4: Guidelines to cautiously reopen parts of Italy would likely be applied starting May 4, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said. He said the country's reopening plan should include assessments of how many people used public transportation and private vehicles, at what time, and how social distancing could be guaranteed — and rush hours avoided — for commuters. Read his original post on Facebook.

Netflix expects 2x customer sign-ups: Netflix has more than doubled its own projections for new customers, as quarantined audiences are bingeing on content. But the company has predicted a weaker second half of the year if stay-at-home orders to fight the coronavirus are lifted. Read more here.

Specials

Big unknowns about virus complicate return to normal: Some scientific unknowns about Covid-19 are deeply worrying, and they are complicating efforts to reopen the economy. The issues go beyond the logistics of how many tests are available. For example, it's not yet clear how often people can spread the virus without showing symptoms. Read it here.

Refresher

What to do if you catch the coronavirus

Long Reads

America needs real-time economic data to get through this crisis: Checking the latest Covid-19 numbers has become a daily ritual for many. There’s both solace and alarm to be had from the numbers. In that context, the traditional indicators by which we gauge the health of our economy seem suddenly inadequate. From the Federal Reserve to Wall Street, there’s a scramble to find a new high-frequency data to map the destruction in real time and help guide the salvage effort. Read to understand how decision makers are tackling this problem.

Opinion

Howard Schultz on loans for small businesses: Starbucks chairman emeritus Howard Schultz says he is rethinking loans for small businesses. "These transformation loans should operate like start-up financing, but be longer-term, lower-interest, include one year of no payments, and a portion that’s forgiven. A new federal facility should be established to purchase loans from banks, removing the loans’ risk to banks and speeding their flow." Read full comments on his medium post

#Alibaba

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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Food Distribution 101: What Happens When the Food Supply Is Disrupted by a Pandemic

A worker unloads a fruit and vegetable truck in the UK before the pandemic | Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images

Coronavirus is exposing the gaps in a complex food distribution system that’s seeing farmers dump excess product while food banks report shortages

This story originally appeared on Civil Eats.

“It’s like Armageddon, but we’ll get through it,” Benjamin Walker explained over the phone in mid-March. That day, sales at Baldor — the New York-based food distribution company where Walker is the vice president of sales and marketing — had dropped by 85 percent.

With 90 percent of its business focused on food service, Baldor’s 400 trucks are typically loaded with specialty produce, meats, and baked goods bound for restaurants, hotels, schools, and stadiums in New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C. In other words, its food goes to all of the institutions that have been shut down by the coronavirus pandemic.

“The shimmer of hope for us is the 10 percent of retail [sales we were already doing],” Walker said. “That’s really the only food channel operating at the moment, and that supply chain has been maxed out.” Over the last months, Walker and his team have been acting quickly to onboard new accounts and reroute those trucks.

As shoppers across the country have stockpiled food in anticipation of weeks or months of eating at home, there has been significant panic at the sight of empty shelves in grocery stores. Experts and food-industry groups have jumped in to assure the public, in various publications, that the American food supply was strong and those shelves do not reflect shortages. Instead, they were said to be a reflection of behind-the-scenes adjustments that need to be made by manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to keep up with where people are eating.

In the last few weeks, however, it has also become clear that the workers we rely on to harvest, process, stock, and deliver all this food are vulnerable to coronavirus — which means we will likely begin to see gaps in the production system itself.

We’re also seeing large disparities where farmers, without their usual foodservice markets, are being forced to dump milk, eggs, and produce — even while there is an urgent, unprecedented need at food banks. And while there are efforts underway to address the gap between production and distribution, in between are many questions about how our food supply and distribution systems are set up — or not — to respond to disruption.

For now, what we know is that the country is in the midst of a rapid shift in terms of the kinds of foods that will get to shelves and how they get there — as well as shifts in who is available to work, how those workers are kept safe, and new restrictions on movement between countries (and sometimes, cities). With all this in mind, now is the time to understand what U.S. food distribution, under the best of circumstances, looks like.

Photo by ARIANA DREHSLER/AFP via Getty Images

Organic tangerines and boxes sit out at Stehly Farms Organics in Valley Center, California

Food Distribution 101

Farmers produce food in all 50 states, but agricultural production is concentrated in California and the Midwest. Some states have built robust local and regional food systems in which food is sold directly to residents at nearby farmers’ markets, restaurants, and CSA subscriptions, but the vast majority of food leaves farms and enters a complicated, interconnected web of transport and processing.

Andrew Novakovic, a Cornell University agricultural economist, said that the beginning of the supply chain is pretty uniform, but once food leaves the farm, “that’s where you start to get some divergence.” Some foods that are sold fresh are moved almost directly through packaging to a grocery store, while others are processed into different products.

Dairy is a good example of variability in supply chain length. The shortest is for milk, which is highly perishable. It’s bottled and pasteurized and then trucked directly to a retailer or moved quickly through a distribution center before being shipped to grocery stores or food service customers.

Cheese is a different story. That milk might be processed into mozzarella in a factory, which is then used by various companies to turn it into blocks or packages of shredded cheese. Or maybe the milk goes to a factory where it’s processed into powdered cheese, which might then be sent elsewhere to a processor making boxed macaroni and cheese, as one ingredient in the assembly line. “Every [food] has a little bit different detail, but the fundamental story is farm to processor, processing in one or multiple locations, maybe there’s storage involved, and then ultimately it gets to a food manufacturer or retailer,” Novakovic said.

Those pathways, however, are rarely simple nor linear. In 2019, a research team at the University of Illinois gathered data on how food moves between counties and then developed maps that illustrated those “food flows.” The research showed 9.5 million “links” between counties. “For example, the map shows how a shipment of corn starts at a farm in Illinois, travels to a grain elevator in Iowa before heading to a feedlot in Kansas, and then travels in [the form of] animal products to grocery stores in Chicago,” the lead researcher explained late last year.

Then there are imports and exports. According to Economic Research Service data, in 2018, U.S. agricultural imports totaled $129 billion, with more than half of that total in “horticultural products” like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and wine. While those foods were coming in, even more food was being shipped out, with exports totaling $140 billion. In 2018, Canada, China, and Mexico received the most food from the U.S.; more than 50 percent of the rice, wheat, and nuts produced here were exported.

While several decades ago, retailers were more likely to store extra inventory, in recent years, supply chains have become what many in the industry call “lean.”

“Supply chains are so efficient, they call them ‘just-in-time’ food delivery systems,” explained Robin Currey, the director of sustainable food systems at Prescott College. This is possible because retailers track buyer behavior over time and order just what they need when they need it. “The models are extraordinarily well-developed … because nobody wants to be losing money [on food waste or storage],” she said.

Before the pandemic, those models accounted for shoppers buying roughly the same portion of food they ate every week—the remainder was eaten outside the home. So, when people were told to stock up and stay home, demand spiked, and that lean system wasn’t stocked with extra inventory.

“We’re making decisions about [food] purchases today that are going to be consumed over a longer period of time,” said Michigan State University agricultural economist Aleks Schaefer during the first in a series of weekly Zoom presentations about how the coronavirus is impacting the supply chain. Schaefer said he saw current shortages at supermarkets as “short-run disruptions that over time will be ironed out.”

Photo by Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images

Asparagus harvested during the coronavirus crisis

Coronavirus and the Supply Chain

“As the virus spreads and cases mount, and measures tighten to curb the spread of the virus, there are countless ways the food systems at all levels will be tested and strained in the coming weeks and months,” the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations declared at the end of March.

Starting at that first step in the chain, the U.S. food supply could first be affected by disruptions in farm labor. Many farms rely on workers who come from Mexico and other countries via temporary agricultural H-2A visas, and while the Trump administration is allowing workers to come in, fewer workers may make the journey, given the situation. Farmworkers are also particularly vulnerable to coronavirus, and outbreaks in the fields could occur.

In meat processing, workers in several states have already contracted COVID-19, causing groups of workers to go into quarantine; others have walked out of meatpacking plants demanding better protections.

On Monday, the CEO of Smithfield — one of nation’s largest suppliers of pork — warned that the virus was pushing the industry “perilously close” to a meat shortage.

“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Smithfield Foods CEO Kenneth Sullivan told NPR.

So far, Novakovic doesn’t think these impacts will spread industry-wide. But he is concerned that transportation could be affected. “There’s going to be a lot of stress on the transportation system,” he said. The U.S. trucking industry was already confronting a shortage of drivers before the coronavirus. And there have been recent reports of truckers facing fears on the road, as they face shuttered truck stops and changes in demand.

Data from the food flows project also shows that the most “important” counties in terms of sending out and bringing in the most food each year are almost all in California, one of the states hardest hit by COVID-19 so far.

Tessemae’s is a Maryland-based company that makes organic salad dressings, condiments, and salad kits sold at national retailers like Target and Walmart. Co-founder and CEO Greg Vetter said he was initially concerned because the produce the company uses for its salad kits comes from Monterey County, California, which issued a “shelter in place” order starting on March 18. However, agricultural supply chains have so far been allowed to operate as usual. “Right now, we’re exempt from any of these lockdowns,” he said. “So we’re just going to keep watching this in real time.”

Movement across international borders is likely to be affected in bigger ways, and the FAO noted that it was “already seeing… challenges in terms of the logistics involving the movement of food.”

In many places where travel has been restricted in the U.S., exceptions are largely being made for important food distribution. The closing of the Canadian border, for example, does not apply to commercial traffic, which Novakovic said recognizes that “we’ve got pretty integrated supply chains going in both directions.”

At Baldor, Walker said he has started to see disruptions in imports, especially from heavily affected places like Italy and France. While there is a significant amount of imported food already stocked in the U.S., depending on when trade and production return to normal, he said, “you’re going to start to see the domestic stock of European imports vanish.”

“While we might have the food supply available, will we have the workers to get it to us?”

Still, that does not necessarily translate to an overall food shortage, Novakovic emphasized. “If you can’t get Brie cheese from France or olive oil from Greece, nobody in the U.S. is going to go hungry,” he said.

And yet shifting supply chains to move food normally destined for restaurants and other institutions to retail locations is a bigger challenge than it sounds.

At Baldor, Walker said the core challenge has been quickly setting up accounts with retailers. “We’ve been trying to onboard hundreds of new customers,” he said. On the day we spoke, his drivers delivered to 150 Acme supermarkets, a chain based in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Other companies set up to sell to both food service and retail customers, such as Organic Valley, are taking a similar tack. The company’s structure, a cooperative of 1,800 dairy farms, means it already has a network of small, domestic producers spread out across the country. But chief revenue officer Staci Kring said in a statement that the company was working to adapt to the shift. “Where we have the flexibility, we are redirecting production from food service to retail to fill the increase in demand,” she said.

Another challenge Walker noted was that retailers have different produce preferences than restaurants. Grocery store shoppers only want about 50 popular items out of the 3,000 items Baldor usually distributes, so farmers who grow produce such as microgreens and purple garlic for chefs are likely to be more affected than onion and tomato growers.

Once distribution networks do shift more to grocery stores, labor at those stores presents a final challenge. “Some of the stock-outs and slowdowns in grocery check-out lines are because employees are staying at home and practicing social distancing,” Purdue University food and agricultural economist Jayson Lusk said in a recent blog post. “This problem is likely to grow if more people become ill. So, while we might have the food supply available, will we have the workers to get it to us?”

Trader Joe’s has already had to temporarily close stores in New York City after workers tested positive for coronavirus, although it’s one of several grocery stores that are implementing preventative measures, like reducing hours to give staff time to stock shelves while limiting exposure to customers.

“In many locations, we’ve adjusted our hours to allow our store teams time to rest a little, clean, and get new products in and on the shelves for our customers,” Kroger’s CEO Rodney McMullen said in a video posted to the national grocery chain’s coronavirus information page.

Supermarkets are also hiring more workers: Safeway, a national grocery chain, announced it has 2,000 open positions to fill, while Amazon announced it would hire an additional 100,000 workers to handle increased delivery demand (a significant portion of which is likely due to a spike in online grocery orders). Like many things, whether the companies will be able to fill those jobs at a time when social distancing is encouraged is a big unknown.

Will Food Distribution Become More Localized?

Will the disruptions to these long food chains prompt more people to buy food directly from local producers? Maybe.

“I’m in the midst of writing an op-ed right now about this being the moment for local food systems to shine,” Malone said during the Michigan State University presentation. He’s not the only one. Kathleen Finlay, president of the New York-based food and farming organization Glynwood, recently made that argument in The Boston Globe, and many articles have chronicled a rise in demand for local food.

Prescott College’s Currey said that the COVID-19 crisis has called new attention to food security, and that some of the benefits of localized food distribution are on display. For instance, relationships between farmers and customers that enable direct distribution far from crowded grocery stores. Small, direct-market farmers are also not locked into contracts with big buyers, so they can be more nimble and change what they grow and how they get food to people more quickly.

On a basic level, “the longer and the more complicated something is, the more things can go wrong,” Currey said.

But different kinds of crises can illuminate the risks and opportunities of different systems of distribution, she added. A hurricane that wipes out crops in Florida, for example, would highlight the benefit of being able to get food from far away shipped in. “Longer supply chains can enhance our resiliency when we have localized disasters,” Currey explained.

Her hope is that “increased awareness about some of the vulnerabilities in our food supply” will lead to deeper consideration of how to build domestic and regional food security, and where balancing that with imports and exports really makes sense.

In the meantime, the supply chain will continue adjusting on the fly. “I get a recap from our head of supply chain at the end of each day. It’s ‘What’s going to happen next?’” Tessemae’s Vetter said. “Every single day is something new.”

• Food Distribution 101: What Happens When the Food Supply Is Interrupted by a Pandemic [Civil Eats]

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2VBfn4D https://ift.tt/2K6BfQa

A worker unloads a fruit and vegetable truck in the UK before the pandemic | Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images

Coronavirus is exposing the gaps in a complex food distribution system that’s seeing farmers dump excess product while food banks report shortages

This story originally appeared on Civil Eats.

Photo by ARIANA DREHSLER/AFP via Getty Images

Organic tangerines and boxes sit out at Stehly Farms Organics in Valley Center, California

Food Distribution 101

While several decades ago, retailers were more likely to store extra inventory, in recent years, supply chains have become what many in the industry call “lean.”

Photo by Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images

Asparagus harvested during the coronavirus crisis

Coronavirus and the Supply Chain

On Monday, the CEO of Smithfield — one of nation’s largest suppliers of pork — warned that the virus was pushing the industry “perilously close” to a meat shortage.

“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Smithfield Foods CEO Kenneth Sullivan told NPR.

“While we might have the food supply available, will we have the workers to get it to us?”

And yet shifting supply chains to move food normally destined for restaurants and other institutions to retail locations is a bigger challenge than it sounds.

Will Food Distribution Become More Localized?

Will the disruptions to these long food chains prompt more people to buy food directly from local producers? Maybe.

On a basic level, “the longer and the more complicated something is, the more things can go wrong,” Currey said.

• Food Distribution 101: What Happens When the Food Supply Is Interrupted by a Pandemic [Civil Eats]

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