* Coronavirus pandemic brings upheaval to food supply chains
* Farms seek buyers online to avoid destroying crops
* Without migrants, farmers hire furloughed factory workers
* Pasta, flour makers work overtime to keep shops supplied
By Gus Trompiz, Sybille de La Hamaide and Christopher
Walljasper
PARIS/CHICAGO, May 7 (Reuters) - From Europe to Asia and
across the Americas, farmers and others in the global food
supply chain are innovating to keep the world fed when
populations are told to stay home, street markets are closed and
labourers cannot travel to work in the fields.
Didier Lenoble has gone online to sell vegetables grown on
his farm near Paris as the usual street stalls he supplies are
temporarily shut because of the coronavirus crisis.
"It's a whole new business," said Lenoble, whose family-run
farm has been selling to customers via a new website.
Elsewhere, an Indian farming cooperative is delivering
direct to city dwellers as a lockdown closed its usual
distribution channels and a Mexican supplier to U.S. berry giant
Driscoll's has hired furloughed factory workers to pick produce.
The coronavirus pandemic has put a huge strain on the
complex chains that usually bring food to people's tables,
forcing suppliers to adjust their normal routines to cope with
snags to harvesting, transport and distribution.
The crisis has exposed the world's reliance on international
trade and on a vast number of seasonal workers who usually
travel from farm to farm, often crossing borders, to help gather
in produce as it ripens. Parts of the chain are creaking. The closure of processing
plants due to coronavirus outbreaks has threatened U.S. meat
supply, while some farmers have left crops to wither in the
fields as labourers cannot reach them. But many farms and firms are adapting quickly.
Lenoble's website has helped him restore sales volumes to
about half their normal level, saving part of his lettuce and
radish crop from being destroyed.
Rungis wholesale centre south of Paris, Europe's biggest
food market, launched an online service that made 250 home
deliveries a month ago and now makes 6,500 a week in and around
the French capital.
'ELIMINATING MIDDLEMEN'
India's Sahyadri Farms, a cooperative in the western state
of Maharashtra that processes fruit and vegetables for export,
now makes daily deliveries to 3,000 urban consumers, who order
online, after a nationwide lockdown disrupted supply chains and
left some farmers feeding their crops to cattle. "As we are eliminating middlemen in the distribution chain,
both farmers and consumers are happy," said Sahyadri Chairman
Vilas Shinde.
In the United States, restaurant owners and suppliers are
taking a new approach. Chicago-based restaurant Park and Field
sells grocery and meal boxes to households, while Gunthorp Farms
in Lagrange, Indiana is selling chicken that was once bound for
high-end Chicago restaurants direct to consumers.
For some suppliers, the challenge has been keeping up with
demand for staples such as eggs, flour and pasta, which have
flown off supermarket shelves as people stock up to eat at home.
Pasta and flour makers in North America and Europe are
running some production lines round the clock and have reduced
their ranges to maximise volumes. Other suppliers are turning to new pools of workers.
U.S. berry distributor Driscoll's has taken on laid-off
restaurant and hotel employees at its U.S. distribution
warehouses to work as forklift drivers and quality assurance
inspectors, the firm's president, Soren Bjorn, said.
Green Gold Farms in Mexico, a supplier to Driscoll's, has
hired factory workers like Omar Cortes Arteaga, who was
furloughed from an automotive plant. He works at Green Gold's
berry farm in Jalisco state, where labourers wear masks and have
temperature checks before going into the fields.
"The job is helping me with my bills," said the maintenance
technician. "Here I do chores, carry pots, prune plants."
NEW RECRUITS
Finding seasonal workers is a priority in Europe, where
spring harvests are at risk because the usually vast armies of
migrant labourers cannot leave home. Spanish asparagus grower Jaime Urbina cannot turn to an
eastern European workforce as he usually does. "They are stuck
in their countries because the borders are closed," he said.
Spain, the European Union's biggest fruit and vegetable
exporter, has responded by allowing the unemployed to take farm
jobs while keeping welfare payments, and has extended work
permits for those migrants already in the country.
France has mobilised 15,000 French workers idled by the
crisis so far to help offset a potential shortfall of 200,000
foreign labourers this spring. "It's positive for farming because these are profiles that
are not usually drawn towards seasonal work," said Jean-Baptiste
Vervy, head of Wizifarm, a start-up behind a job-matching
website that took off in the lockdown with government backing.
But he said some farmers were frustrated that the new
recruits lacked skills or had quickly quit.
Poland, meanwhile, is struggling without Ukrainian seasonal
labourers and the Russian Agriculture Ministry said prisoners
might help out on farms in the absence of Central Asian workers.
Germany, Britain and Ireland are allowing companies to bring
in trained workers from Romania and other European Union states
on charter flights with quarantine measures. U.S. President Donald Trump has exempted such migrants from
a temporary curb on immigration during the crisis.
Elsewhere, Nigeria's federal government is making identity
cards so farm workers can move freely during a national lockdown
after many were stopped by police.
Iraq's Agriculture Ministry said farm workers were exempted
from curfew measures and farmers were allowed to move harvesting
machinery around the country.
To keep transport links running smoothly, Brazilian
toll-road operator CCR SA CCRO3.SA has distributed more than
1,000 food and hygiene kits a day to truck drivers as service
outlets are closed.
In Kenya, Rubi Ranch has been sending avocados to Europe by
ship due to limited air freight capacity, as airlines have
grounded aircraft and cut off the company's usual supply route.