"I kind of pine for those 2018-2019 days when we reached levels of 90 percent schedule reliability," Luckett said during her presentation. "We haven't seen anything like that (lately). COVID was taking us down 10-20 percent. … I think that, in the coming decade, we are going to long for the days of COVID."
And it is, perhaps, climate-related events that could have the biggest impact on the rubber industry, especially when it comes to natural rubber. The industry, after all, relies nearly entirely on hevea natural rubber—which is susceptible to blights and disease, given its monoclonal nature and the inability of farmers to properly protect their crop due to low wages and extremely low commodity prices.
And that doesn't even take into account the severe flooding from heavy rains that have impacted NR growing regions in recent years.
Thus far, rubber industry supply chains are and have been resilient, yes. They've managed to survive port closures, Red Sea blockades and geopolitical upheavals. They managed to make it through a pandemic, for goodness' sake.
But that doesn't mean we should continue with the status quo.
As Luckett encouraged, it's critical to rethink our supply chains and look for ways to strengthen and shorten them.
For natural rubber, more specifically, that means commercial scaling—as quickly as possible—alternative NRs such as guayule and TKS dandelion rubbers.
Such steps are imperative.
In the meantime, though, the industry is going to have to create some luck of its own, simply by planning ahead for just about any eventuality.
"The best thing you can do, though," Luckett told Rubber News earlier this year, "is just make sure you have something on this side of the pond."