Just after Mother’s Day in the US, an unexpected crisis with infant formula – a substitute for breast milk – has begun to worsen
There is now an acute shortage of baby formula in 20 states in America – and in another 6 states it is catastrophic.
Mothers with infants have to travel to neighbouring states trying to find baby food supplies. As usual, Biden’s team takes responsibility for the new crisis, saying that the private sector is to blame, and the state has nothing to do with it.
But the infant formula market is highly regulated by the state. As is often the case on such quasi-private markets, an oligopoly of several corporations has formed. One of them has recently had to recall its products en masse due to a bacterium detected there.
Other firms are unable to ramp up production quickly because of a logistics crisis. In addition, the USA is unable to import emergency supplies from abroad, as this would take months of negotiations. And now the countries of the world are closing their food markets amid wars of sanctions – trying to stockpile goods to survive the impending crisis.
An acute shortage of infant formula could hit the US demographic, which is already in crisis, hard. In 2021 the birth rate plummeted to 1.62 children per woman, an anti-record in the 246 year history of the US. In half the states, the number of deaths has surpassed the number of newborns.
In Britain, it is already predicted that 40% of families with three children or more will fall into poverty once the recession hits. In the US, the figures could be comparable – and that would deal an additional blow to demographics. And the baby food crisis itself is just a harbinger of future catastrophes that will increasingly arise as supply chains and sanctions break down. The worst thing about them is that no one in the US or Europe can predict where the next one will explode.
Malek Dudakov
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