My first research question is, how the COVID-19 crisis affected to Finnish food security.
The corona crisis has had different kind of effects to food security in different fields of society so far. These fields include e.g., markets and consumerism, production, legal field and so on. These effects appeared during my data collection period in March 2020 to July 2020. It is possible, that new kind of effects have appeared later during corona crisis since the pandemic has continued since December 2019 to this day (August 2022).
The coronavirus pandemic affected the consumption patterns of food in couple of ways.
These effects were related to hoarding, reduction of workplace and school lunches and changes in consumer behavior. One of the first effects of corona crisis related to food security in Finland that caught media attention was the behaviour of people in supermarkets. The arrival of coronavirus and first corona infections in Finland caused a sudden change in consumer behaviour, that the markets had not been prepared to. This led to empty shelves in supermarkets when consumers started hoarding foodstuffs. Due to hoarding, people were also lining to stores. People started buying long lasting foods, such as dry food and canned food, in case there would be long lockdowns and food shortages. In many stores some products ran out completely. People started making bigger purchases at once and coming to store less frequently to avoid getting infected. They also started to bulk buy groceries online to avoid contact with people, which caused order delivery backlogs due to the popularity of the practice. Taxi companies started to deliver groceries to peoples' homes, especially those who were in risk groups. There was a spike in demand of domestically produced foods, especially baked goods, dairy and meat. In addition, telecommuting changed the peoples' way of consuming food. Because people were working from home, they were also eating at home instead of eating in restaurant or cafeterias.
Due to government's social distancing orders and gathering restrictions, restaurants had to stop serving people inside the restaurant if they could not provide a space with proper social distancing possibilities. This led to bankruptcies in many cases. However, many restaurants were able to continue their business by selling take away portions. In some cases, the staff could be relocated to other tasks of the chain, e.g., to grocery stores as in S-group's case, but for many it meant unemployment and lay-offs.
During corona time people were affected by weakening of economic situation, layoffs, bankruptcies, and income irregularities. The pandemic hit the needy harshly. The need for food-aid tripled during corona time. Corona crisis was especially hard for families with kids. Municipalities had practices to support families and schoolchildren who studied remotely, e.g., by providing lunch packages, gift cards or cash, and some let people have lunch in school cafeterias. Some municipalities offered food for everyone who wanted it, but some restricted the distribution to those in need. However, many municipalities did not offer anything. Municipalities produced diverse solutions because the guidelines from the government were not clear. Clear instructions from the higher ups are important especially in crisis. One threat to Finnish families during summer is the end of free school lunches during summer vacations. It is a challenge always for the needy families, but especially troublesome during corona crisis.
One interesting effect of the troubles of corona crisis was, that Finnish Red Cross got complaints from owners of valuable estates of needy lining for food on the streets. A positive side of the corona crisis was, however, the increase in the number of Finnish Red Cross volunteers.
There was a threat of not being able to have all types of foodstuffs available. In Finland shortage of yeast was speculated. Problems in the global food supply chain were affecting to Finland as well. For example, many fruit packers in Spain stayed home, which meant that less fruit was being packed and therefore exported. In addition, coronavirus threatened Finnish berry industry, and since coronavirus threatened berry pickers abroad as well, it was not sure if it was possible to get berries from abroad to replace the domestic ones. Farmers were worried of securing the production of vegetables, beets and berries
when the coronavirus crisis proceeded. It was thought, that if the pandemic would continue longer than estimated, the imported goods that could run out first from Finnish grocery stores would be coffee and fruits. In addition, there could be shortages from fertilizers used in agriculture. The pandemic has, indeed, lasted longer than estimated – however, because countries and societies have lifted most corona restrictions, food supply chains have been able to work. A big risk to food security would have been widescale restrictions on exporting foodstuffs. However, majority of imported foodstuffs are not essential for the security of supply of Finland, because Finland’s equity ratio in foodstuffs is about 80 percent. Cargo services continued to work normally despite the pandemic.
Export restrictions of food stayed moderate during the pandemic.
One big threat to food security was the possible illness of personnel. At the time of first virus outbreaks the coronavirus was still pretty much a mystery. It was unclear, could the virus paralyze whole societies, if enough people would get sick at the same time. The risks included lot of farmers getting coronavirus and not getting foreign workers to the country to fill the positions of sick workers. One response to this threat was to train members of company office staff to cover for those who fell ill.
In summer 2020 Finland was likely to suffer from vegetable shortages and higher food prices. Threat was that several agricultural companies would have been forced to close permanently due the coronavirus crisis, which could have led to rising food prices.
Finnish farms and gardens were going to have labor force shortages due to corona restrictions. The shortage of workers could have made the prices of berries and vegetables rise. Some operators were in threat of ending their operations due to labor shortage and some products were at risk of becoming unavailable. One risk was that the food prices were going to rise when farmers were scared to invest in summer production because of labor shortage. Securing production was especially important because when the corona crisis advanced, importing farm and garden products from other countries would contract.
Therefore, imports could not replace homeland production. If the prices of foodstuffs were to rise powerfully, inflation would accelerate. This would put pressure on society and will affect the rest of the economy. When vegetables have pressure of rising prices, it will affect the whole food chain. According to Secretary General of European Farmers Pekka Pesonen, the best way to help in the situation was to send signal to the farmers that
there was going to be a solution to the labor force shortage problem and that the farmers should invest in springs, summers and falls crops and that there would be help available later. (YLE, 4.4.2020)
MTK estimated that availability of labor force is one of the biggest difficulties caused to the countryside livelihoods by the corona crisis (YLE, 3.4.2020). There were a lot of factors that affected the situation with workers in Finnish primary production. Finnish primary production has relied heavily on foreign seasonal workers, especially from Eastern Europe. Important countries included non-EU countries Ukraine and Russia.
Uncertainty and confusion with corona regulations made free movement of these groups difficult. Global corona restrictions caused trouble for people who needed to cross borders for work. Entering the country was regulated, as well as exiting the country. It was unsure, if a country would allow people to enter a country, but also, if a country would allow leaving the country. Movement was easier between EU countries than non-EU countries.
The workers could already have had their work permits, but they were not able to come because the flights were cancelled due to coronavirus. It was possible that the whole personnel on one farm was unable to come, which meant that all the employed people were unexperienced. Ukrainians, Thai and other foreign seasonal workers are appreciated workforce in Finland. Same people have come to the Finnish farms to work for many years. Foreign workers were needed in critical tasks in the farms for diverse farm jobs.
Also, management skills were needed. The group of foreign seasonal workers that was considered to have these skills was called “the number ones.” Many jobs require special skills. For example, there cannot be put workers to animal farms who do not have experience of animal care.
Hiring of seasonal work was stuck when the arrival of foreign workers was not sure, and farmers did not want to hire Finnish workers if the foreign workers were coming. There was a risk that if farms could not find seasonal workers from Finland, part of the crop would not be able to be planted or harvested. Agricultural companies were going to be bankrupt, and according to MTK many businesses were in danger of quitting completely.
The need for seasonal workers on farms in spring 2020 was acute. Considering security of supply workers were needed for fields, seedling production, planting vegetables and
workers rose. The unsure and possibly changing corona situation and confusion with the restrictions caused trouble. According to the farmers it was not fair to promise work for Finnish people if suddenly it would be possible for the foreign workers to come after all later in the summer.
At the same time, Finnish people were encouraged to apply to do agricultural work, and the farmers did not hire them because they wanted to hire foreign workers. The Private Employment Agencies Association HPL recruited 10 000 Finns who were ready to go work on farms and gardens. Domestic workers had been encouraged to work in agriculture via töitäsuomesta (work from Finland) -webpage by The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners MTK. However, farmers were hesitant to hire, because they were waiting for the government's decision about letting foreign seasonal workers enter the country.
During the pandemic there were a lot of applications from domestic workers to do agricultural work, but farmers would rather hire foreign and more experienced workers.
Despite the big number of applicants to farm work, Finnish workers were criticized.
According to the farmers, Finnish people were not eager seasonal workers due to the low pay, long distances, and physical nature of the work. Farms located close to cities got domestic workers easier than long distance ones. According to farmers the problem for Finns was not the salary, but the high standards. For example, Finnish people were not ready to live in shared accommodation. Farmers were also worried, that Finnish people might quit in the middle of the season, if they would not be content with the work.
Mid-June 2020, the success of the year's strawberry season was uncertain due to labor shortage. The strawberry season had already started in small amounts, but farms were still uncertain of if they were about to get foreign labor force or not. Bigger farms were suffering more than smaller ones, since it was different to replace 50–100 workers than 5–20 workers. This shows how farms had to live with uncertainty for months when it comes to seasonal workers. Finnish government lifted the restrictions concerning seasonal workers in 6th of May 2020, but the arrival of seasonal workers was still dependent of the restrictions that the countries where the workers were from had. For
example, Ukraine and Thailand did not want to let their citizen to leave the country for seasonal work at first.
One special feature of corona crisis was legal difficulties. There was no regulation prepared for the effects of corona crisis, so there were situations where people faced difficulties in legal matters. As an example, there were Ukrainian seasonal workers who were stuck in Finland because of closed borders. YLE reported that those Ukrainians that came to Finland visa-free to work as seasonal workers are not able to return to Ukraine because of closed borders. A few dozen Ukrainians were in danger of being forced to stay in Finland longer than they wanted to because they had no possibility of leaving in time.
In addition, the complicated social security system caused confusion. The government made changes to legislation and the social security system in order to attract seasonal workers. E.g., Member of the Parliament from the Left Alliance Jari Myllykoski proposed that people who have been suspended without pay would be justifiable to unemployment daily allowance during the suspension as an addition to the pay received from the other employer. In addition, the government gave financial support to industries in food production. The support package included 30 million euros to farmers and 10 million euros to the fishing industry.
There were some weather-related challenges to food security in addition to COVID-19-related ones. These difficulties created by weather conditions, such as drought and shallow snow covering the previous winter, enforced the challenging situation together with the COVID-19 pandemic in spring and summer 2020.
The pandemic caused a worry for food safety. During the pandemic consumers raised concern of COVID-19 being transmitted via berries. Finnish Food Authority stated that it was safe to eat natural berries despite COVID-19 infections among berries and that it is nearly impossible to get COVID-19 through food.
A global price spike of food was feared. However, in May 2020, there were no signs of a global price spike. In fact, in spring 2020, the price of food was on the wane. For example,
the prices of meat and dairy had dropped when the pandemic had disturbed transport and changed the demand.
What has been a typical feature of the COVID-19 pandemic, that has lasted more than two years, is uncertainty. At the beginning, the scientific community as well as regular people did not have a lot of information about the disease. When people were afraid of the effects and possible mortality of the new virus, other uncertainties arose as well, related to food security among other things.