COVID-19 and Food Systems: Rebuilding for Resilience
By Jack Ryan, Partnerships Officer, Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition
The Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition recently produced a brief for the Scientific Group of the UN Food Systems Summit, ‘COVID-19 and Food Systems: Rebuilding for Resilience’. This paper makes clear that while food systems urgently need to be transformed to better support both human and planetary health, transformed food systems must also be resilient to future shocks.
Food systems were in crisis before COVID-19 and this paper shows how the pandemic has further impacted food systems over the past year, including disruptions in food production, dietary choices and jobs and income losses. Food environments have experienced considerable change, with the closure of restaurants, informal markets and schools during lockdowns, and a surge in the demand for online grocery shopping.
It is vital that food systems are prepared for future shocks, to avoid setbacks and loss of progress. This paper also looks forward to consider what future demand-side and supply-side shocks might look like, and how they could differ from COVID-19.
The recommendations in this brief are applicable to all countries. However they are especially relevant to low- and middle-income countries as they are generally less able to cope with shocks affecting food systems. These recommendations are of direct relevance to Action Track 5: Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses and include guiding principles and actions to enhance the resilience of food systems when rebuilding from COVID-19, which will be an important topic of discussion for the Food Systems Summit.
This is one of two briefs being developed by the Global Panel for the Scientific Group. The second paper, ‘The Transition Steps Needed to Transform Our Food Systems’ will be featured soon.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United Nations Food Systems Summit.
