Using Tweets to Predict Real-Time Food Shortages

upstart writes:

Using tweets to predict real-time food shortages:

The sentiments and emotions expressed in tweets on Twitter can be used in real time to assess where supply chain disruptions due to a pandemic, war or natural disaster may lead to food shortages, according to researchers at Penn State and the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar. They found that food security-related tweets that expressed anger, disgust or fear were strongly correlated with actual food insufficiency in certain U.S. states early in the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings can potentially be used to develop a low-cost early warning system for identifying where food-security interventions are most needed, according to the researchers.

"The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related supply-chain disruptions prompted worldwide concerns about food access and availability, and many people took to social media to express these concerns," said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural and regional economics at Penn State and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD). "We wanted to see if real-time tweets could be used to identify specific states or regions facing food supply or insecurity problems."

Goetz said that rather than looking only at the number of tweets related to food insufficiency, he and his colleagues wanted to know how people actually felt about their food situation. Using artificial intelligence, they identified the sentiments and emotions associated with the tweets, which allowed them to separate tweets expressing concerns about the food supply from those expressing relief or contentment.

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