Whats even better than planning for costly buffers that are unused most of the time is having a system that can adapt to unplanned changes in circumstances. So far I don't see that this isn't the case, but time will tell.
Containers have to become a lot more expensive to have that effect. Per unit costs are still a fraction of total costs, so I wouldn't worry to much about that.
Is it that easy? It seems, that only works if people can pay for the essentials. For example, look at the grain prices that sparked the protests of the arabian spring. People could everywhere not afford their bread anymore while Saudi Arabia bought the grain at ultra high prices.
Yes, it's that easy. And prices of commodity food staples only cause unrest in very poor nations where food inputs constitute a large % of their income.
Wheat costs about $200/ton and peaked around $450/ton during the arab spring period. A ton of wheat (with a few supplements) is enough to for 500g/day for 5 people for a year if half your calories come from wheat. Even at $500/ton, that's about $100/yr/person for the wheat itself. Wholesale raw foods are quite cheap from the perspective of someone in a rich nation. Can be quite expensive for the very poor. The solution is to help people in poor nations industrialize so that they are less poor.
Isn’t this a problem of efficiency and optimization? Running the system lean leads to lower costs, but with risk of occasional shortfalls due to exogenous effects. But to optimize for those relatively infrequent events would increase the cost of the frequent events (the everyday shipping).
Given the challenge of finding an optimum it seems like the world hasn’t done too badly.
