Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jul;4(7):607-615.
doi: 10.1038/s43016-023-00793-y. Epub 2023 Jul 20.

Structural chokepoints determine the resilience of agri-food supply chains in the United States

Deniz Berfin Karakoc  1 , Megan Konar  2 , Michael J Puma  3 , Lav R Varshney  4
Affiliations

Structural chokepoints determine the resilience of agri-food supply chains in the United States

Deniz Berfin Karakoc et al. Nat Food. 2023 Jul.

Abstract

The agricultural and food systems of the United States are critical for ensuring the stability of both domestic and global food systems. Thus, it is essential to understand the structural resilience of the country's agri-food supply chains to a suite of threats. Here we employ complex network statistics to identify the spatially resolved structural chokepoints in the agri-food supply chains of the United States. We identify seven chokepoints at county scale: Riverside CA, San Bernardino CA, Los Angeles CA, Shelby TN, Maricopa AZ, San Diego CA and Cook IL; as well as seven chokepoints at freight analysis framework scale: Los Angeles-Long Beach CA, Chicago-Naperville IL, New York-New Jersey NJ, New York-New Jersey NY, Remainder of Texas, Remainder of Pennsylvania, and San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CA. These structural chokepoints are generally consistent through time (2007, 2012, 2017), particularly for processed food commodities. This study improves our understanding of agri-food supply-chain security and may aid policies aimed at enhancing its resilience.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Ercsey-Ravasz, M., Toroczkai, Z., Lakner, Z. & Baranyi, J. Complexity of the international agro-food trade network and its impact on food safety. PLoS ONE 7, e37810 (2012). - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Brown, M. et al. Climate Change, Global Food Security and the US Food System (USDA, 2015).
    1. Gbegbelegbe, S., Chung, U., Shiferaw, B., Msangi, S. & Tesfaye, K. Quantifying the impact of weather extremes on global food security: a spatial bio-economic approach. Weather Clim. Extremes 4, 96–108 (2014). - DOI
    1. Durand-Morat, A., Nalley, L. L. & Thoma, G. The implications of red rice on food security. Glob. Food Secur. 18, 62–75 (2018). - DOI
    1. Walton, R., Miller, J. O. & Champagne, L. Simulating maritime chokepoint disruption in the global food supply. In Proc. 2019 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) 1708–1718 (IEEE, 2019).

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources