Effects of the Covid-19 pandemic to Finnish food security

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EFFECTS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC TO FINNISH FOOD SECURITY

Master’s Thesis 10/2022

University of Eastern Finland Department of Geographical and Historical Studies Elina Rodriguez Student Number: 259545 Master's Thesis, Seminar and Maturity Test 40 cp (5119242) Instructor: Tuija Mononen Date: 29.10.2022

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ABSTRACT

Faculty

Social Sciences and Business Studies

Unit

Department of History and Geography

Author

Elina Rodriguez / 38970170

Name of the Thesis

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to Finnish food security

Major

Natural Resource Governance

Description Master's Thesis

Date 29.10.2022

Pages 71

Abstract

This thesis addresses the topic of food security and its vulnerabilities in Finland during the corona pandemic. There was a need for social science research regarding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. I chose to research the effects of the pandemic on Finnish food security. The theoretical frame for this research is food security and vulnerability.

The research was made by investigating media articles from Finnish news sources that covered the corona crisis and its effects on food security in Finland. I chose media analysis as my analysis method, because during the time of the pandemic and lockdowns it was a safe and convenient way to do research remotely. The material of this thesis consists of online media sources, more specifically news articles. In the research I created a timeline of the effects of coronavirus on Finnish food security by using these sources. The data consists of 47 news articles. Material is from March 2020 to July 2020.

According to this research main effects of COVID-19 pandemic to Finnish food security during spring and summer 2020 were related to consumer behavior, weakened economic situation in peoples' lives, shortage in seasonal workers, and difficulties in legal sector due to new situation brought by COVID-19. Because of the experience of surviving through pandemic, Finland and its food sector is better aware of future threats. More research is needed of the effects of COVID- 19 pandemic to the Finnish food security of the time after summer 2020.

Key words

Food security, food supply-chains, pandemic, vulnerability, COVID-19

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ABBREVATIONS

ETL: Finnish Food and Drink Industries' Federation

FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FIES: Food Insecurity Experience Scale

LUKE: Natural Resources Institute Finland

MTK: The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners of Finland NESA: National Emergency Supply Agency of Finland

PHEIC: Public Health Emergency of International Concern UN/ISDR: The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction UNPD: The United Nations Development Programme WHO: World Health Organization

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1 PREFACE

1.1. Research Topic and Background

In December 2019, a new kind of virus started to spread from Wuhan, China, quickly taking over the entire world. On 11 March 2020, WHO declared SARS-CoV-2 as a global pandemic. (WHO) The outbreak was sudden, and there were plenty of uncertainties in the air. How dangerous is COVID-19? What will happen now, and should people be scared or be prepared for something? At the beginning, there were more questions than answers. People became scared for their health, and when the pandemic went on, there were new things to fear: what kind of effects will the pandemic have on the world, besides getting sick? When countries started to close their borders to prevent the disease from spreading, it had major effects on many things in this globalized world. News started to come out of how the pandemic could have an impact on food security. People started to hoard food and toilet paper, and shelves became empty in stores around the globe.

Countries started to regulate and restrict peoples' movement and closing their borders. In the global north people became scared that food would run out from the stores due to disturbances in food systems. Measures taken to combat COVID-19 and prevent it from spreading awoke a worry about food security. Global food systems need free movement to work, and when it was taken away, it was unclear what kind of effects it would have.

There have been pandemics before, but measures taken to fight COVID-19 were unprecedented in the modern world. Basically, the world was living in a state of a lockdown for two years, restrictions changing on and off depending on the current virus situation in the area. Schools were changing to remote studying, and as for adults, those who could: worked remotely. Masks became mandatory in public spaces, such as stores and public transportation. For the past few years governments have lifted the restrictions occasionally, for some time, and when COVID-19 cases have started to rise, they have put them back again. Development of vaccines took quite a long time, and when they came, they have not been a long-term solution since their efficiency gets reduced rapidly by time. The effect of the vaccines wears off in a few months, and the efficiency depends on the type of the virus. COVID-19 keeps constantly mutating, so the vaccines are not

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keeping up. After two years of the outbreak there are still a lot of mysteries about COVID- 19, for example the so-called long covid, where a person keeps having symptoms to some extent after the COVID-19 disease even though they would otherwise be cured from it.

The pandemic caused drastic changes in the world and how we operate. It also made visible how globalized our states are and how dependent we are on one another. People in rich western nations are not used to being aware of these kinds of dependencies - instead, many things such as exotic fruits in grocery stores seem more self-evident than specialty.

Since 2020, food security has become an even hotter topic. In February 2022 Russia started a war in Ukraine, which has had and will have big impacts on food security globally, including in Finland. After thinking if I should update my thesis topic, I decided to remain in my old topic since I think researching the effects of corona crisis will support the way we see the effects of the war as well, as well as the effects of other crises in general.

Food is essential for human beings. Even though food is so important, food systems and other things ensuring food security are not familiar for a lot of people. When food security has been secured for a long time, food might easily become a thing that is being taken for granted. It can be claimed that this happened in rich western nations - until different global crises started shaping the world and hitting the food systems. Crises like the corona pandemic as well as Russia's war to Ukraine have had major effects to our global food systems, making their vulnerabilities visible.

In 2017 I finished my bachelor's thesis about the food security discussion in Finland. Back then I wanted to know if the Finns were aware of the importance and fragility of food security. The topic had caught my attention in environmental sociology class while I was studying abroad in Japan. During class I got a chance to study the topic more closely, and I was shocked – I had not really thought about food security and food systems before. I realized how the stability of the food security is not self-evident at all, especially when the climate change and its effects will grow stronger, and the world becomes increasingly

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the state of our nation's security of supply situation, and the challenges we might face in the future.

Later, I realized how my way of thought has been western-centered. Food security has been a topic forever. Perhaps it has just been called hunger, and it has not caught my attention the same way since it has been urgent in the global south rather than been a topic in the rich countries of the global north. When learning more about how climate change will threaten food security in the countries of the global north, and in my country as well, I became frightened and realized the urgency of the situation.

Climate change will affect many different aspects of food security. It will threaten food production, for example through drought. In addition to natural scientific reasons climate change has many societal and people related effects as well. When food security is threatened through climate change, it will cause disturbance among people. This can lead to further threats, such as wars. This is an important point of view to take into account when thinking of the relation between climate change and food security.

I became interested in what kind of effects the pandemic will have to food security, since it would show us in real life what the vulnerabilities in Finnish food security are. Looking back the pandemic did not have severe visible impacts for consumers in the global north.

But, it did indeed reveal the vulnerable spots of food systems. This is a great opportunity to analyze what are the vulnerabilities of Finnish food security.

The COVID-19 crisis has had an influence on Finnish food production. The purpose of this thesis is to follow the progress of the corona crisis in the spring and summer of 2020 and find its effects, especially vulnerabilities, on Finnish food security. By investigating how these kinds of crises affect society, we will be able to prepare for them better in the future.

Writing this in August 2022, food security has become an everyday topic, one reason being the COVID-19 crisis but also the Russian was in Ukraine. Global instabilities in the past few years have made it essential to talk about self-sufficiency, security of supply

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and food security in Finland. These instabilities and uncertainties are going to be more common in the future because of strengthening climate change. In Finland today, conversation and research about food security as well as vulnerabilities and resilience of the food system is more important than ever.

This master’s thesis is from the major of natural resources governance in the programme of environmental policy and law. Natural resources mean those parts of nature that humans are able to utilize (Rannikko & Määttä 2010: 8). Natural resource governance means institutional arrangements that guide the usage of natural resources that individuals and organizations do (Sairinen 2009: 139). In natural resources governance it is important to consider interests of different actors and values (Rannikko & Määttä 2010: 9). Food is an example of a natural resource that we humans utilize every day. Therefore, issues regarding food and securing it, food security in other words, is to be considered in the field of natural resource governance. This thesis is part of the field of social food research.

1.2. Research questions and methods

My research questions are the following: How the COVID-19 crisis affected to Finnish food security? What were the vulnerabilities in Finnish food security in COVID-19 crisis?

My master’s thesis is a qualitative case analysis. I am using content analysis an analysis method, and more specifically, media analysis. I chose this research method because media has followed closely effects of corona crisis on Finnish food security and therefore there is a lot of material about the topic. Through the media I was able to follow what effects the situation had in real time.

2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

2.1 FOOD SECURITY

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2.1.1 Food systems

The framework of this thesis is social food research. Social food research seeks to understand the social, legal, and economic aspects of food (Douglas 2003, 1). Because of global threats such as climate change the focus of foodstuffs and food production is in global food system (Mononen & Silvasti 2012: 7). Global food has contributed to food security of many societies but brings many threats as well. In the global food system malnutrition is a huge problem at the same time when obesity is on the rise (Tapio- Biström & Silvasti 2012: 69).

The concept of food systems includes different kinds of actors and their activities relating to food products and production, aggregation, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food. These food products can be from agriculture including livestock, forestry, fisheries, and food industries. In other words, production of food is not only farming, but also pre- production actors, such as input industries producing fertilizers. Science, technology, data, and innovation sectors all contribute to food production. Other actors worth mentioning are public and private quality and safety control organizations as well as food processing. The concept of food systems relies on systems theory, which is a theory of systems and relations inside systems. The father of systems theory, W. Forrester, states that group of activities that regularly interact create a system. (Von Braun et al, 2021: 4)

Food supply chain is an important concept of food security and food systems. Food supply chain is a network of organizations that are involved in the production of food. It is a subsystem of a broader food system. Food system differs from the concept of food supply chain in a way that it includes the interactions between the biophysical and human environments and the outcomes the activities have. (Paloviita & Järvelä, 2015: 2)

Most parts of food production need hydrocarbon fuels for germination and producing crops, harvesting, processing, and transporting the produce to markets. The reason for this dependency is the exceptionally long food supply chains of the rich global north. If there were scarcity of oil, it is likely that the price of food would rise. It is to be expected that food protests will become more likely when the effects of climate change become more common, such as floods and desertification. (Urry, 2011: 74)

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2.1.3 Food Security

The right to food was first recognized in the UN declaration of human rights in 1948. In 1996, the World Food Summit defined food security as:

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economical access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

In other words, when food security exists, individuals don't suffer hunger or live under the threat of hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) introduces four dimensions of food security: availability, access, utilization, and stability (FAO).

Availability means the availability of sufficient quantities of food. The food must be of appropriate quality. Food can be imported, (e.g., food aid), or domestic production.

Access means access to resources for getting appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. This means having access to food regarding the political, legal, economic, and social arrangements in society. This includes traditional rights such as access to common resources. Even though food would be available, there might not be access to it, for example because a person cannot afford it. Accessibility must exist throughout the year for food security to exist. Utilization means the utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation, and health care to reach a state of nutritional well-being where all psychological needs are met. The dimension of utilization shows the importance of non- food inputs in food security. Stability means that the access to food must always be stable.

To be food secure, a population, household or an individual must always have access to adequate food. They should not risk losing access to food because of sudden shocks (e.g., an economic or climatic crisis) or cyclical events (e.g., seasonal food insecurity).

Food insecurity is the opposing concept of food security (Karttunen et al., 2014: 16).

According to Oxford languages, which is Google's English dictionary, food insecurity can be defined as the state of being without reliable access to sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. When a person does not have access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy life, they

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are considered food insecure. This can be caused when there is not food available and/or not resources to get food (FAO). FAO uses the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) to measure food insecurity. There are different levels of severity of how food insecurity can be experienced. In FIES, food insecurity is presented in the following way: Food security to mild food insecurity exists when there is uncertainty regarding ability to obtain food. Moderate food insecurity exists when a person is compromising on food quality and variety, at worst reducing food quality and skipping meals. This person might not have enough money to buy food among other reasons. Severe food insecurity exists when a person has not had a meal in a day or more. FAO separates the terms food insecurity and hunger. When food security as a term describes the phenomena more broadly, the concept of hunger is more specific and describes the physical condition.

“Hunger is an uncomfortable and painful physical sensation caused by insufficient consumption of dietary energy. It becomes chronic when the person does not consume a sufficient amount of calories (dietary energy) on a regular basis to lead a normal, healthy and active life. "Hunger" can also refer to "malnourishment" (FAO).

When we talk about food security globally, we think about huge food related disasters such as famine. According to the online dictionary of Merriam-Webster, the term

"famine" refers to an extreme scarcity of food.

What things cause food insecurity, in other words, limited or uncertain access to healthy and nutritious food? Food insecurity exists when availability, access, utilization and stability of food are endangered. Some reasons that cause food insecurity include poverty, seasonal variations in availability of food, changes in food prices, changing weather and farming conditions and other factors that affect the availability and utilization of food.

For example, rising food prices can drive a poor person to food insecurity. Bad weather conditions or soil erosion can lead to crop failures leading to less available food.

Food insecurity can also be caused by unstable nations, global political situations, and international conflicts. Food and water can be used as a form of warfare when availability of food is intentionally stopped. In addition, dictatorships are unstable when it comes to food security, because they can control food inside the nation. According to Karttunen et

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al. (2014: 45-47) food is a human right based on the declaration by the United Nations, and nations have a responsibility to act so that the rights of the citizen are secured. This means that nations must secure their citizens' right to food. However, in reality, this responsibility is not always fulfilled.

The concepts of food security and food insecurity are complex. Food insecurity does not always mean absence of food, but malnutrition. For example, it is possible to be obese and malnourished at the same time (FAO). If unhealthy foods with poor nutritional value are cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables, it is likely that people with not much money will buy the one they can afford. This way they do not have access to healthy and nutritious food. The most apparent outcomes of food insecurity are malnutrition and famine.

Mariola Kwasek lists threats to global food security in her article Threats to food security and common agricultural policy (2012). According to Kwasek, the threats to food security worth mentioning are the following: world population growth; increasing demand for food, especially meat as well as dairy products; scarcity water and land resources and the fight of arable land with the producers of biofuels, industry, and urbanization. Kwasek also mentions the following as things that have a disadvantageous impact on global food security: climate change; the vanishing of biodiversity of ecosystems and the diversity of agricultural cultivars; new plant and animal diseases; and increasing energy and food prices; the losses good and waste food; as well as speculation on the food market (Kwasek, 2012). In other words, the way we produce and consume food is unsustainable.

According to Kaisa Karttunen and the Food strategy group (2010: 9) the future of consuming and producing food is affected by developments in consumer buying power, relative price of food and consumer preferences, international competition of the markets and natural resources, development of global demand and changes caused by climate change. According to their report, in the next 50 years the global demand for food is going to rise by 70–85 %. When agricultural land is reduced, it is harder to add more land for the purpose of agriculture, and therefore the productivity of agriculture must be increased.

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production, using more arable land for biofuel production and drought and extreme weather conditions caused by climate change. The report estimates that consumption habits are going to change through population growth, urbanization and rise in living standards, adding especially to the global demand for animal feed. The supplies of foodstuffs will be less than demand which will lift the prices of groceries. Climate change is the biggest factor affecting the future of global food production. Climate change will change the global and local weather systems that make our weather, and extreme weather conditions are going to increase everywhere around the globe. In addition to hurricanes and typhoons, for example droughts, extreme heat and soil erosion are going to be more common.

According to the executive team of forming the food strategy (2010: 20) the faster and more fierce strengthening of climate change than anticipated is a threat to food security that is hard to foresee. Possible effects of this phenomenon include an increase of climate refugees, escalation of political crises, pandemics, and spreading of plant and animal diseases.

Consequences of food insecurity include famine and malnutrition. When food crises are becoming more common because of intensifying climate change, these consequences are going to become more common as well. Possible outcomes of increasing food insecurity are conflicts and war over food related resources.

Famine as a concept means widespread scarcity of food. Famine creates regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemics, and increased mortality. Malnutrition is a state that is followed by a diet that is not sufficient for its nutrients and therefore causes health problems. Malnutrition causes diseases in every age group. A bad diet does not give a person enough energy and they are not able to live an active life, which often leads to poverty. If a person does not have money, they do not have the possibility to get nutritious food. Therefore, malnutrition is a vicious cycle.

The matter of food and water security will be to an increasing extent a matter of security policy. Securing food security has been considered preventive of conflicts. For example, one reason of uprisings of Arabic spring has been seen to be food insecurity that

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concerned political economies as well as households (Karttunen and Food Strategy Group, 2010: 9). Price fluctuations of world market prices of foodstuffs are still threatening the regions peace process and food security would help both economic development as well as success of political transitional phase (Karttunen et al., 2014:

62).

Discussion of a potential future food crisis has been increasing globally.

Overconsumption and strengthening of climate change are facts that bode for a future food crisis. Global solutions to the threat of food crisis have already been presented.

Evan Fraser (2012) presents solutions to solve food crisis in their YouTube -video Feeding Nine Billion Video 1: Introducing Solutions to the Global Food Crisis.

According to Fraser the first key to solving the food crisis is the means of science and technology. Different kinds of scientific innovations offer new alternatives to current consumption patterns. Already, humanity is using technology in food production in different kinds of ways, such as using pesticides or genetic modification. Supporters of GMO believe that GMO products will solve the food crisis in the future. Markus Vinnari, who is interviewed in Taru Anttonen and Jukka Vornanen's book Lihan loppu (2016: 288- 289) notes, that new innovations in food production are increasing. As an example, there are laboratory grown food products, such as laboratory meat.

According to Fraser (2012) another solution presented to fix food crisis is its equal distribution of food. Currently one of the biggest inequalities of food security is the problems in availability of food around the globe. Currently, enough food is produced for everyone and even more, but it is not equally distributed globally. This causes famine in developing countries and obesity in developed countries. Distributing food equally is fighting against social injustice. As a solution to this Fraser suggests that international organizations should have better access to global food storage which could be used to emergency food aid. This would prevent food insecurity, agitation and conflicts caused by it.

The third method Fraser (2012) presents is supporting local food systems. Supporting

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that behind this thinking is the thought of food sovereignty. The concept means peoples' and sovereign nations' right to define democratically their own agricultural and food policies and produce culturally acceptable and diverse foods for themselves. According to food sovereignty local food systems should be cherished and prevent the concentration of food production in the hands of large corporations. The concept of food sovereignty was launched by Via Campesina in the World Food Summit in 1996. Food sovereignty aims to promote trade policies and practices that serve single nations' right to food and sustainable food production. In the declaration of Via Campesina, the role of women and smallholders has been raised an important matter for food security. According to FAO's estimations the crops of female smallholders in developing countries could be 20–30 % bigger than now if they had the same right to farmland and production inputs. Therefore, food security is connected to women's rights as well.

As a fourth mean Fraser proposes stronger regulation and governance. To secure food security nations should start supporting sustainable ways of production and developing legislation that would ease responsible and sustainable food production.

In addition, Fraser (2012) goes through some criticism posed to these solutions mentioned to global food insecurity. According to criticism, new innovations and technologies are making investors and corporations richer rather than helping people and the environment.

Also, too much regulation is criticized because it restricts the food producers too much.

The threat is that the outcome of too much regulation is the so-called uniform diet, which means a certain kind of meal. The fear is that peoples' meals will become unilateral, and people will not get the type of meal that is according to their preferences or culture.

However, the right to food according to one's preferences and culture is secured in the World Food Security Meeting in 2009 when the concept of food security was defined.

Supporting stallholders better is also criticized, because it is not seen as a proper solution to big scale food crisis in the future.

Climate change causes sudden crises, such as global pandemics. The positive side of the COVID-19 crisis is that it has made visible threats to our food security and food systems that we have not had known to even think about. Surely, the pandemic has made apparent

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our food systems’ global nature – when different societies started to close their borders, nations started to worry of their food supply chains, and many countries became aware of how dependent they are of imported goods. For example, COVID-19 crisis made Sweden realize their low level of security of supply and ask food aid from Finland in March 2020 (Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, 17.3.2020).

Food security is an important topic globally because the food systems are global. This has both positive and negative effects on food security. On the other hand, it is important that nations can produce food for everyone regardless of borders. On the other hand, it has made food systems dependent on many things, for example energy, produce and employees. When the free flow of these items is threatened, it will threaten the whole food system. There are other negative sides as well. Globalism, capitalism, and colonialism have made it possible to take advantage of developing countries in the form of using their agricultural land and cheap labor. Karttunen et al. (2014: 49) write, that the problem of global food production is that it is focused on few big multinational corporations that hold their capital in the US and in Europe. They override smallholders and centralize wealth and power of controlling food security to the hands of only few actors. Global good systems can be very unequal – for example, developing countries are exporting luxury products to developed countries instead of ensuring food security for their own citizen (Borg and Joutsenvirta, 2015: 52).

Global food security is affected by price of oil, changes in food prices, climate change, growing production of biofuels, quality of food and changes in policies (Jokinen et al., 2011: 65). Food security is in a vicious cycle, where climate change is creating challenges to food production while at the same time there is a growing need for food and food production is strengthening climate change.

In combating hunger, the only important thing is not how much food we produce, but who governs the resources that are needed for food production (Buxton et al., 2016: 269).

A former special rapporteur of the UN Olivier de Schutter has stated that investments to increase food production are not enough and we need higher incomes and improved livelihoods for small-scale farmers in developing countries. Investments should not be

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agroecology. The aim of agroecology is to adapt agriculture to the ecosystem where it is done. In agroecology, external inputs are minimized, and the own resilience and diversity of the system is maximized. It also aims to reduce the number of pests, improve the soil quality, and collect water. It would connect forestry, aquaculture, and farm animals to farming systems. These measures could help to improve the ecological resilience of farming from threats of climate change (Buxton et al., 2016: 272).

2.1.4 Food Security in Finland

In Finland, food security is not self-evident either. In Finland food insecurity is not fighting famine, but it manifests as breadlines and, as the COVID-19 has unveiled, problems in getting important resources in order to maintain food production during crisis.

Historically speaking, Finland has experienced food insecurity in the past. Finland is a special country when it comes to food security and food production, because of its northern location, cold circumstances, and short growing season (Karttunen and Food Strategy Group, 2010: 7). When reviewing Finnish food security, it is important to recognize its history and unique features. For a long time, food security has been self- evident to Finns, but Finland has its dark history as well when it comes to food security.

Finland has suffered from famine and rationing of food. During the 1900's the agriculture and social security developed in a way that food security was secured in Finland.

In 1696–1697 Finland suffered from famine and about 25–30 % of population died from hunger and diseases. Also 1866–1868 over 200,000 Finns starved to death because the crop was lost several years in a row. In the 19th century Finland got food aid from abroad and the government and municipalities organized soup distribution stations to ease the situation. Also, many people had to beg. In the 20th century food supplies were collapsed in Finland as well as other European countries because of the world wars. In Finland, the civil war in 1918 weakened the situation as well. In the years 1916–1921 foodstuffs were rationed in Finland and in Helsinki there was food riots because of rising prices of foodstuffs. Household committees were formed to educate people in food preparation and

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the use of natural products. During the second world war organizations organizing agricultural and household information were important. Rationing of foodstuffs started before the winter war and lasted for over ten years. Because of rationing, the food intake of Finnish people was insufficient, and diet was unilateral. However, thanks to rationing, the shortage of foodstuffs did not increase mortality. Rationing ended in 1949. Rationing of coffee ended in 1954. (Karttunen et al., 2014: 180–183)

In securing food security in Finland, the Finnish social security system has had an important role. During the 20th Finland developed its social security system from poor care organized by municipalities. Also, Finland is famous of its free school lunches.

Already in the 17th century food was collected from houses to maintain schools. The Finnish nation supported organizing of school lunches the first time in 1908. School lunch has been part of curriculum of Finnish basic education since the beginning of the 21st century. (Karttunen et al., 2014: 185–186, 188)

Finland is not completely food security for everyone in Finland. There exists poverty and bread lines which means that not all people have access to food. This is called relative poverty which means that individual's consumption opportunities do not match the general level of the environment. Then people cannot buy as much food of good quality, or they must get food aid. (Karttunen et al., 2014: 187)

Generally speaking, food security is on a decent level in Finland and despite of poverty no one dies of hunger in Finland. Instead, Finland struggles with diseases of affluence, food waste as well as troubles in getting production inputs during exceptional times of pandemic and war in Europe.

Food security and self-sufficiency are strongly connected to the concept of security of supply. According to the National Emergency Supply Agency of Finland (NESA) security of supply means “preparation for potential crises and disruptions and continuity management by way of safeguarding critical functions so that society, the private sector, and the population can continue to operate safely.”(Security of Supply in Finland, 2022)

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NESA also has a specific food supply sector. There are three bodies in the food supply sector: primary production, food industry, trade, and distribution. These bodies coordinate and support the preparation of companies in their own fields, promote cooperation between companies and officials and organize training events regarding preparation. The food supply sector prepares for different kinds of threats, for example trade political instability caused by climate change. In addition, one threat can be the growing vulnerability of the logistical structures and electronic infrastructure of the food sector. In Finland, the concentration of production and distribution to bigger units increases the need for preparation.

Based on numbers of the relation between domestic production and consumption it can be said that in normal conditions the Finnish agriculture can meet the consumer needs relatively well when it comes to national food self-sufficiency. However, domestic agriculture is dependent on many production inputs such as fertilizers, fuel, feed protein and work machinery (Niemi et al., 2013: 3). Food security is a complex issue, and while reviewing it should be considered other things as well than only how the state is able to produce food. Issues regarding food production should be noted as well. Even though a state could produce food according to the needs, different kinds of things are needed to do so, such as oil and tractors. If import of these kinds of products is endangered or prevented, food security is also under a threat.

In addition to production inputs Finland imports a lot of food from abroad. According to Anttonen and Vornanen (2016: 104) 60–80 million kilograms (about 176 million pounds) of meat has been imported to Finland in this decade, which is about fifth or sixth of the domestic meat production. Hence, when it comes to food production and foodstuffs, Finland is dependent of other countries. Therefore, global changes in world politics and food prices are reflected on Finland as well.

It has been estimated that climate change will affect positively to Finland's agriculture when likely the harvest season is going to be longer and farm track is moving to the north.

This would be followed by an increase in production. However, climate change will likely have negative effects on Finland's agriculture as well. Because of the warming climate, new kinds of pests and plant diseases will spread to Finland (Jokinen et al., 2011: 68).

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The threats to Finnish food systems can be international and national factors. The national factors are manifested in inequalities, such as poverty and living being dependent on food aid. On the other hand, making food cheaper does not help in the long run, because it will threaten the mobility of the primary production sector and small and medium enterprises in the foodstuffs sector. This would be a threat to domestic food production. Different environmental and socioeconomical factors cause vulnerability of the food systems, such as climate change, contradictory policies, the imbalance in the relative strengths of the actors and lack of diversity in distinct parts of the system. One of the most significant problems in Finland is the lack of comprehensive food policy. This has resulted to a very shattered food system, where there is no coherent framework for policy actions that would consider factors concerning food production, distribution and consuming by respecting the principles of sustainable development. (Paloviita and Silvasti, 2017)

The biggest threat to Finnish food security today is considered to be a situation where the possibility to get critical items and serviced abroad is weakened (Rautavirta & Ahlström 2012: 90). Even though the global food system brings lots of benefits and more food security, at the same time it makes the food systems more vulnerable as well.

In 17. March 2020 the Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE) posted a blog article by research professor Jyrki Niemi with a headline Are the food prices going to rise and are consumer habits going to chance? Corona virus can also influence agriculture and food economy (translated to English from Finnish). This was one of the first texts I saw that addressed the threat of the pandemic on food security in Finnish context. In the article Niemi introduced possible threats to Finland’s food security that might happen because of the corona crisis. At the beginning of corona pandemic, the virus was not considered to be a considerable threat to the world’s food security, because there were no signs that the virus would have caused food shortages or significant rises on food prices in the infected areas. When considering the situation in Finland, if the amount of people infected with corona virus would rise, it might have an impact on the demand of farm products and foodstuffs, which might have an impact on the prices of farm products and foodstuffs.

Niemi evaluated that when corona restrictions take effect it will especially have an impact

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on tourism, hotel businesses and restaurant businesses. This will in turn show as decrease in demand which will influence the structure of the demand of farm products and foodstuffs. Niemi estimated that the crisis would not influence total consumption of food, but that people would likely buy more from retail. In addition, people would most likely buy more long-lasting staple foodstuffs and changes in consumer behaviour might decrease the demand of easily spoiled products, such as fish. People might hoard but looking other countries it is probably a short-term situation and increase the demand of home deliveries. The situation might change the consumer behaviour long term. Niemi writes that thanks to Finland’s broad and diverse grocery store network the risk of interruptions is not likely. As the biggest threat Niemi mentioned workers getting sick in foodstuffs industry and agriculture, import stoppage and interruption in international production chains. Labour force shortages due to quarantine procedures were also a possible threat. In addition, he mentioned that farms might suffer operating losses if there would be production outage, and the animals grew too big, or the farms would not be able to storage the milk. (Niemi, 2020)

2.2 VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE

2.2.2 The Concept of Vulnerability

The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) has defined vulnerability as "the condition determined by physical, social, economic, and environmental factors and processes, which increase the susceptibility of a community to the impact of hazards."

The United Nations Development Programme (UNPD), on the other hand, defines vulnerability as "a human condition or process resulting from physical, social, economic and environmental factors, which determine the likelihood and scale of damage from the impact of given hazard." (Birkmann, 2006: 12)

During the writing process I wondered if terms like hazards or disasters can be used for pandemics. Are pandemics counted as natural disasters and if not, what are they?

Crises can be defined as events that have big impacts that are often direct and global.

They are difficult to contain and there might be a lot of different ideas of how to respond to them. Mega-crises on the other hand cause deep uncertainty and create a feeling of

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urgency (Helsloot et al., 2012: 5). According to this definition, a pandemic such as COVID-19 pandemic can be labeled as a public health mega-crisis.

In a crisis, a principal factor to consider is length. A short-term crisis has different effects and needs different preparation than a long-term one.

2.2.3 The Concept of Resilience

What has been proposed as a response to vulnerability is the concept of resilience (for example, Adger, W.N., 2006; Kotilainen, J., 2020: 55). Resilience is a system-level concept, where it is important to define a "resilience of what to what" (Tapiola and Paloviita, 2015: 30). Resilience can be divided into two types: general and specified resilience (Tapiola and Paloviita, 2015: 32–33). The term general resilience is used to describe system features, e.g., the amount of change a system can withstand, self- organizing behavior, and diversity. Specified resilience is closer to the concept of robustness (Walker and Salt, 2006: 121).

Resilience gets better over experience. It is different to prepare for a threat or crisis that has not been experienced before. Through experience, it is easier to prepare for the next similar crisis in the future.

The concept of resilience has received criticism as well. Whose or what’s resilience are we talking about? Is it to benefit the people or to protect corporation’s interests? One of the reasons of climate change is the resilience of the capitalist economic system and energy system based on carbon (Buxton & Hayes 2016: 336). Therefore, criticism should be used when talking about resilience.

2.3 THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

2.3.2 Coronavirus

The official name of the coronavirus disease is coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The official name of the virus is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2) (WHO). The most common symptoms of coronavirus are fever, tiredness, and

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or aches and pains. For some people, the disease might be serious, and they might develop trouble breathing and need hospital care. This concerns about 1 out of 5 people that are infected. People who are over 60 years old and people who have underlying medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, respiratory disease, or hypertension, are considered to be in a risk group when it comes to COVID-19 (WHO).

31 December 2019 a pneumonia of unknown cause was first reported to the WHO Country Office in China. The pneumonia was detected in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, China. The outbreak was declared as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020. On 11 February 2020, WHO announced a name for the new coronavirus disease: COVID-19 (WHO).

First case of novel coronavirus outside China was confirmed in Thailand on 13 January 2020. 7^th of March 2020 the COVID-19 reached 100,000 cases globally. The next day, 8^th March 2020, 100 countries reported COVID-19 cases. On 11^th March 2020, the WHO characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic (WHO). The definition of a pandemic is that it is distributed in a country, a continent, or the world, and that the number of observed cases is greater than expected (Dietz et al., 2012: Xxviii). On 29^th June 2020 WHO marked the six-month anniversary of the COVID-19 outbreak (WHO).

By 17^th July 2020 there had been 13 930 135 infections and 591 859 deaths related to coronavirus globally (Worldometer). By 17.8.2022, there were 590 million infections and 6,44 million deaths globally related to COVID-19 (Our World in Data). So far, corona virus variants include the Omicron variant, XJ-recombinant (BA.1 and BA.2) and the Delta variant.

Countries started to have different kinds of measures to combat the globally spreading virus. After over two years since the outbreak there are still diverse kinds of restrictions in place around the globe. These measures can be e.g., closed borders, order to do telecommuting, or mask recommendation in public spaces.

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2.3.4 Coronavirus in Finland

Finland's first SARS-CoV-2 case was confirmed on 29^th January 2020. The government of Finland declared a state of emergency on 16.3.2020. Starting from 18^th March 2020 the schools were closed; public gatherings were limited to 10 persons; people were requested to avoid unnecessary stay outside spaces; public spaces such as libraries, museums, and public pools were closed; visiting elderly and other people that belong to risk group housing services was denied; and so on (Valtioneuvosto, 2020). Finland closed its borders on 19^th March 2020.

By the summer of 2022, diverse kinds of corona restrictions had been in place for about two years. There were national telecommuting recommendations to whom it was possible, that was lifted at the end of February 2022 (Valtioneuvosto, 2022). Writing this in summer 2022 the corona situation is still going on, and people getting sick from the newest virus variants. However, at the moment, there are no corona restrictions in place so far.

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Qualitative Research

Research is creating knowledge based on evidence, and doing research is to make sense of this evidence (Gillham, 2000: 2). This thesis is a qualitative case study. Qualitative research means methods that are descriptive and inferential. These methods focus primarily on the kind of evidence that will enable a person to understand the meaning of what is going on (Gillham, 2000: 1, 10). Qualitative research is a term to describe methods of researching natural social life. The material that is analyzed in qualitative research is mainly non-quantitative and in textual or visual form, such as interview transcripts, documents, and photograph (Saldana et al., 2011: 3). The results of qualitative research are essential representations and presentations of salient findings from the analytic

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synthesis of data and can include, for example, new insight and understandings about individual and societal complexity (Saldana et al., 2011: 4).

3.2 Case Study

I used case study as an approach to investigate the research data to answer specific research questions. A case study can be used to research something that exists here and now and can only be studied or understood in context (Gillham, 2000: 1). A case study is an in-depth study of the cases under consideration. It has been argued that case study can be more like an approach than methodology (Hamel et al., 1993: 1). All evidence is based on the researcher's data. The questions emerge and may change radically as you get to know the context (Gillham, 2000: 10, 17). In case study research the target can be a phenomenon or a flow of events (Laine et al. 2008: 9).

The speciality of case study research is that a complicated phenomenon that is being investigated is observed as a whole. Different point of view and social processes are taken into account during research. Social context is important in case study research (Häikiö

& Niemenmaa 2008: 42). The perception of reality of the researcher affects to what the research is going to be and what kind of results it has (Häikiö & Niemenmaa 2008: 45).

3.3 Analyze Methods

As an analysis method of the data, I used content analysis. Content analysis is a research technique for making conclusions from texts to the context the researcher is using.

Content analysis is a scientific tool and a research technique that provides new insights, increases a researcher's understanding of a particular phenomenon, or informs practical actions. (Krippendorff, 2019: 24)

Specifically, I used media analysis. Media analysis is a form of content analysis and document analysis (Altheide and Schneider, 2013: 5, 7). I chose this method because my data consists of online news articles from different newspapers. By investigating news articles from a certain period, I hope to see new information rising from the data.

According to Altheide and Schneider, in media analysis the objects of study are called

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primary documents (Altheide and Schneider, 2013: 5, 7). Hence, my primary documents are online news articles.

I chose this analyze method, because during the corona crisis it was easy to follow the effects on Finnish food security though the media. By going through these materials, I wanted to see if I would be able to find which vulnerabilities would rise from the data.

When searching for research materials, I used Google as a search engine. When I searched for material, I wanted to find news articled related to relation between COVID-19 pandemic and food security related issues in Finland. Because my research was in Finnish context and focused on Finland, I searched for material in Finnish language. My keywords were food security, food supply-chains, pandemic, vulnerability, security of supply and COVID-19.

3.4 Research Process

I started this research process while I was living in Kyoto, Japan in spring and summer 2020. Because I was living abroad at that time, far away from my home university (University of Eastern Finland, Finland) and its university library, and without access to diverse written material in English, I chose a way to do research that allowed me to collect data online. Therefore, I chose to collect online news articles, which made it possible for me to do data collection from wherever I wanted. This turned out to be an effective way to do research in corona time, because people were working, studying, and spending their free time remotely and in their homes. This was also the safest mode of doing research for me personally as well during the pandemic.

I had wanted my research topic to be something related to food security, and I had done my bachelor's thesis about food security situation in Finland. When I started seeing more news about food security related topics concerning the COVID-19 pandemic I got the idea of investigating the effects of the pandemic to Finnish food security. To me this was interesting, since in my Batchelor's thesis I had researched the food security situation in Finland before the pandemic, and when the pandemic started, I had the change to do research of how a disaster like this effects food security in Finland in real life. During the

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pandemic, safety measures and lockdowns it was possible to investigate what kind of thinks might have been missed in thinking the vulnerability of Finnish food security.

It was relatively easy to find news articles about the topic online. Most of the data was in Finnish, but there were also several English articles, specially from Yle News.

The topic of the thesis as well as choice of the research material was so up to date that I had a positive problem: there was plenty of research material. Corona crisis lasted a long time, and there was a lot of news about its effects to Finnish food security and how different situations relating to that evolved. I had to decide how I would limit my data. At the end, I chose to collect news articles from 5 months of time, March to July 2020. The reason the collecting material started in March was that by that time there first started to be news regarding the topic. I finished collecting material by the end of July, because I felt that I already had plenty of material to base my research on.

One biggest challenge turned out to be translating the research data from Finnish to English. My mother language is Finnish and even though I am fluent in English, I did not have previous experience in translating. Since Finnish and English are quite different languages, it was difficult to translate the research data in a way that the idea of the content did not change. Just changing the words directly did not work at all, and it took time to learn to express the content in different language in a way that the idea of the content was preserved.

3.5 Research Ethics

Since the research data has been collected from public sources, such as research publications and newspapers, it is to be interpreted as free to use as research material.

I chose to leave out news material that was published by political newspapers and remained in news articles published by neutral papers to avoid material that would be politically charged.

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4 ANALYSIS

4.1 Research Material

The material of this thesis consists of online media sources, more specifically news articles. In this section I am creating a timeline of the effects of coronavirus on Finnish food security by using these sources. The news articles consist of news articles from YLE, Helsingin Sanomat, Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti. The data consists of 47 news articles. The number of articles by a newspaper are the following:

YLE 29

Helsingin Sanomat 12

Maaseudun Tulevaisuus 3

Ilta-Sanomat 2

Iltalehti 1

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Material is from March 2020 to July 2020. I chose this period because at first, I was following the case in real time and picked more articles day by day. I decided to limit my material to a period of 5 months so that the amount of material would not rise too high.

I chose Finnish newspaper articles as my source, since I thought they present the topic the best. They focused on the corona crisis and food security from the Finnish point of view, so in my opinion I was able to find the best material to match my research from those.

I limited my data to those that I could access. Some new sites and articles required being a paying customer. YLE is a free news source. Some of articles by Helsingin Sanomat are free, and, I had a membership so I could access their articles. Maaseudun Tulevaisuus allows viewing their articles three times a week for free.

I had to leave out some news articles, since they were repeating an already considered topic.

4.2 Analysis

Coronavirus started to spread in December 2019. A few months later, there started to already be news regarding food security when countries started to realize that the pandemic would have effects to food security globally and locally. Countries started to close their borders, and these measures threatened the global food systems. In this section I am carrying out an analysis of my research data. I am presenting the points in the articles that mention issues regarding food security.

March 2020

“Apocalyptic” hoarding

In March Finns started hoarding food. People were especially buying long lasting foods, such as dry food and canned food, to prepare for coronavirus. In many stores some products ran out completely and shelves were empty. According to Iltalehti people were filling their storages in "apocalyptic" speed even though according to the latest

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information from officials the reaction was exaggerated and there was no real worry of

"world ending". Supermarkets had long lines when people were hoarding food.

According to risk management manager of S-group Mikko Koskinen the news about coronavirus affected the demand in a way that people started to make bigger purchases.

According to Koskinen the stores were going to respond to the demand, and they were getting supplies when shelves were being emptied. One reason for product shortages is the sudden changes in consumer behavior that are hard to foresee. (Iltalehti, 12.3.2020)

In addition to emptying shelves in the supermarkets, Finns hoarded food and started to do bulk buying online. YLE called this behavior panic buying. The amount of web shop user numbers tripled because of ordering food items online, and this caused order delivery backlogs in some cities. Food retailers S-group and Kesko, who have a duopoly in the market and have more than 80 % of grocery trade, both said that they have seen a spike in their online stores during the previous week. The retail trade digital services manager Matti Torniainen of Suomen Osuuskauppojen Keskuskunta (Finnish SOK) commented that they have had twice to three times more visitors on their online services. The rush caused delays for the deliveries, and for example in big cities the earliest delivery was possible the next week, when normally it would have been possible the next day. (YLE, 15.3.2020)

Finnish equity ratio is 80 %, when in Sweden it is 50 %. The chief executive officer of Snellman Meat Refinement, Roland Snellman commented in March that they have received a call from Sweden, saying that they are worried about the sufficiency of food.

The coronavirus crisis made the citizen to worry about the sufficiency of food. The editor- in-chief of the Land Lantbruk –magazine Lena Johansson said that "every other bite" in Sweden is imported food and the effects will be seen if the borders close and people start hoarding food. According to Tommy Snellman, the corona crisis shows how important self-sufficiency and security of supply are. He continued that when the supply chain is in one's own hands, it is possible to respond to the demand fast. (Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, 17.3.2020)

Restaurants started to close to fight the spreading of the virus. The S-Group closed 82 of

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pandemic with social distancing measures by following regulations enacted by the Finnish government. The restaurant staff was relocated to work in grocery stores. For risk groups, who could not go to supermarkets due to the crowds, taxi companies started to deliver groceries to peoples' homes. (YLE, 18.3.2020)

Changes in demand

The Corona crisis caused a spike in demand for domestically produced foods, especially for the most popular foodstuffs. Demand grew for baked goods, dairy products, and meat.

Executive Vice President at Valio Marktes Elli Siltala says that long lasting products such as packaged cheeses and spreads have been high in demand. According to the Finnish Food and Drink Industries' Federation (ETL) the level of food self-sufficiency in Finland is at a proficient level. Slaughterhouses were able to function normally despite the pandemic. According to the food federation the average degree of domestic origin of food produced in Finland is 82 percent. The percentage is different depending on food category. In 2018, the value of Finnish food and beverage export was about EUR 1.6 billion and imports about EUR 4.6 billion. According to Ruokatieto Yhdistys, which is an organization that promotes Finnish food culture, 65 percent of bread grain and 61 percent of tomatoes, 81 percent of beef and veal products and 95 percent of pork consumed in Finland are produced domestically. Milk products are produced the same amount they are consumed, and egg production is 115 percent of consumption. According to senior advisor at Fazer Mill Finland Pekka Mäki-Reinikka the mills have sufficient stocks of bread grain. However, according to managing director of Finnish Yeast Erkki Varonen, there could be a shortage of yeast during the pandemic since the demand than doubled since the pandemic started. Vitamins, trace minerals and sugar beet molasses needed for yeast production were in stock. Finnish Yeast says that they are only selling domestically at the moment to ensure supply. Dry yeast is imported to Finland. According to CEO of dairy cooperative Maitomma Markku Iivonen the biggest threat to food production during the pandemic is the possible illness of food industry personnel. The response to this threat is training members of the company's office staff in case of worker shortages as well as continuing normal measures of good hygiene of products and workers. (YLE, 20.3.2020)

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Some shelves in the supermarkets were still empty by the end of March. Telecommuting changed consumer behavior. Because of telecommuting many people were eating at home instead of restaurants or employee cafeterias, and families were preparing more meals at home since schools were in lockdown. According to Executive VP at S-Group for chain management, procurement, and logistics Arttu Laine and the President of Kesko Grocery Division Ari Akseli the hoarding calmed down and the situation normalized from the worst panic buying by the end of March. Consumers were going to the stores less frequently but buying more at once when they did. The retailers commented that when there were still some empty shelves the reason was that their supply chains had not caught up yet. Sudden spikes in demand due to the corona crisis caused that the stores were not able to fill the shelves fast enough, for example because there was not enough workers.

There were problems in the global supply chain as well: for example, many fruit packers in Spain stayed home, which meant that less fruit was being packed and therefore exported. (YLE, 24.3.2020).

April 2020

The threat of labor shortage and high food prices

In summer 2020 Finland was likely to suffer from vegetable shortages and higher food prices. The threat was that several agricultural companies would be forced to close permanently due the coronavirus crisis, which could have led to rising food prices.

Finnish farms and gardens seemed to be going to have a labor force shortage due to corona restrictions. Normally Finland receives about 16 000 seasonal workers in the harvest season. Finnish ministry of Agriculture and Forestry stated that primary production sector needed promptly 1 500 seasonal workers to Finland in 2020 and the government had granted entry for them. Securing the production of vegetables, beets and berries was important, because it was not certain if the import of those foodstuffs would continue when the coronavirus crisis proceeded. 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. The CEO of Puutarha Tahvoset oy Tomi Tahvonen explained that they were supposed to receive about 20 foreign seasonal workers. The workers already had their work permits, but they were not able to come because the flights were cancelled due to

Effects of the Covid-19 pandemic to Finnish food security