With the development of globalisation, countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) heavily rely on shipping for food imports and supplies. With the unpredictable impacts of black swan events, such as the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak and the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which are traditional food export countries, global freight supply chains could dramatically change, which significantly affects the global food supply chain (FSC) resilience, requiring new solutions to be found. Therefore, it is vital to assess a country’s food importing system by sea to ensure its FSC resilience. However, it is challenging to analyse different food supply resilience levels on a national scale given the high uncertainties in the key relevant elements (e.g. food supplies and transportation) influencing FSC resilience. This paper aims to develop a new method to assess FSC resilience at a country level by pioneering the combination of the two most relevant attributes, its production-to-supply ratio and shipping transport connectivity, used to present food supply security separately in the current literature. Within this context, food production and import distance affecting the connectivity of various food supplies are selected to estimate FSC resilience in this study. The findings, including a new index framework to assess national food resilience, significantly contribute to a country’s food security and the rational development of countermeasures and policies when necessary. To demonstrate the significance of the findings, the resilience of the UK FSC is first evaluated in a real case study, followed by a comparative study with Canada, Australia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the FSCs of different countries. The findings of the studies can be used to monitor FSC resilience of the countries and provide rational policies for enhancing FSC resilience.

中文翻译：

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全球食品供应链弹性评估：英国案例

随着全球化的发展，英国等国家严重依赖航运来进口和供应粮食。随着新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）爆发、传统粮食出口国乌克兰与俄罗斯之间的武装冲突等黑天鹅事件的不可预测影响，全球货运供应链可能发生巨大变化，从而对全球粮食产生重大影响。供应链（FSC）弹性，需要找到新的解决方案。因此，评估一个国家的海上食品进口系统以确保其 FSC 弹性至关重要。然而，考虑到影响 FSC 弹性的关键相关因素（例如食品供应和运输）的高度不确定性，在全国范围内分析不同的食品供应弹性水平具有挑战性。本文旨在开发一种新方法来评估国家层面的 FSC 弹性，开创性地将两个最相关的属性（生产供应比和航运运输连通性）相结合，用于在当前文献中单独呈现粮食供应安全。在此背景下，本研究选择影响各种食品供应连通性的粮食生产和进口距离来估计 FSC 弹性。研究结果，包括评估国家粮食抵御能力的新指数框架，对国家粮食安全以及必要时合理制定对策和政策做出了重大贡献。为了证明研究结果的重要性，首先在真实案例研究中评估英国 FSC 的弹性，然后与加拿大、澳大利亚、刚果民主共和国 (DRC) 进行比较研究，以确定 FSC 的优势和劣势不同国家的。研究结果可用于监测各国FSC复原力，并为增强FSC复原力提供合理政策。