“You can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs…” Dr. Norman Borlaug

Our nation faces a crisis, a food shortage that impacts one of our most vulnerable populations, infants. There is a shortage of infant formula with dire consequences; babies are being hospitalized due to malnourishment or being given formula that isn’t appropriate for specialized nutritional needs. Parents have resorted to mixing “homemade” formula from evaporated milk, karo syrup and water. A few days ago, President Biden issued and executive order under the Defense Protection Act (DFA) to mitigate this problem. Formula has been flown in from Germany and critical ingredients in the food supply chain are being directed towards formula manufacturing as a priority.

This is the second time in recent years that the president has issued this type of order under the DPA, the first being in 2020 during the early days of the pandemic when supermarket shelves were empty and consumers faced a lack of food. The first order was to keep meat and poultry operations open and it was eventually amended to expand to all food production in the nation.

Being on the front lines of government during this time, I know for a fact that this order was NEVER used to require food processors to remain open. As I have blogged about previously and spoken about many times, instead of using regulations to overturn health department decisions, a cooperative effort was utilized and coordinated at the USDA level. This approach brought together local authorities, the CDC, USDA and OSHA with the industry to coordinate action plans to protect employee health while continuing to ensure food production during the pandemic. The CDC sent teams to evaluate the safety of the facilities and even provided onsite testing to identify which employees could work. Coordinated action plans were implemented thus the decisions of the local health department were respected, implemented and always followed.

This approach is a historical fact and can be verified easily in the government record and in each and every local health department record. Thinking back to this time, consumers were already frantic due to COVID lockdowns. A toilet paper shortage, which is technically not a matter of life or death, gave us a snapshot of consumer reactions when something is in low supply and great demand. Can you imagine the despair we would have faced if we ran out of food? The good news is, we didn’t. I have said it many times and will say it again, “Food Security is a Matter of National Security.”

With both executive orders, politics have ensued and dominated the news cycle. Instead of the consequences of the outcome, political agendas grab onto the issue and use it for political gain. This is dangerous and unethical. Instead of problem-solving, we point fingers and determine who is to blame. A recent article in Politico described the politicizing of the infant formula situation. They stated Republicans are blaming Biden because of his “economic policies: and his administration (the FDA) was “too slow” to act. The Biden administration blames the plant, saying the facility was unsafe and had to be shut down. The Democrats are again pointing to “antitrust” issues and saying the company produced 40% of the formula and the lack of supply chain diversity caused the shortage. Abbott, the company that was shut down, says the original infant illnesses were never linked to their product, but they do acknowledge there were bacteria found in their facility that should not have been there and they are working to solve this problem.

I point all of this out because we are spending a tremendous amount of energy on politicizing the problems instead of problem-solving. As food industry professionals, we all know that no issue is as simple as what is seen on the surface. One must dig deeper and find root causes. Also, there are many dimensions of an issue, not just one and the consequences of the decisions are multi-dimensional. It is time to direct the energy towards the greater good instead of gaining votes or supporting a political agenda. When the food supply chain gets politicized, no one wins.

The Danger of Politicizing the Food Chain

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