The global food supply chain is passing a severe test

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IF YOU LIVE in the rich world and want an example of trade and global co-operation, look no further than your dinner plate. As the lockdowns began in the West two months ago, many feared that bread, butter and beans would run short, causing a wave of stocking-up. Today, thanks to fleets of delivery lorries filling supermarket shelves, you can binge-eat as you binge-watch.

This capitalist miracle reflects not a monolithic plan, but an $8trn global supply chain adapting to a new reality, with millions of firms making spontaneous decisions, from switching rice suppliers in Asia to refitting freezers. The system is far from perfect: as incomes collapse, more people are going hungry. There are risks, from labour shortages to bad harvests. And there is an irony in seeing the industry grapple with a crisis that probably began with the sale of pangolin meat in a market in Wuhan. But the food network is so far passing a severe test. It is...