COVID-19 and Food Systems: Rebuilding for Resilience

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, international supply chains and global food systems continued to feed most of the world, but with varying levels of damage and disruption, and with impacts on food security being felt most acutely by the poor. Worryingly, the pandemic has exposed substantial fragility of current food systems, and the threats facing the world if they are not made more resilient. A major shift in approach is needed to make food systems more sustainable, equitable and supportive of healthy diets. This requires an important shift from a food system agenda aimed at maximising food output to ‘feed’ as many people as possible to one that focuses on i) system- wide effects aimed at nourishing people, ii)sustaining the planetary environmental base on which all food systems depend, and iii) bolstering essential food system services and outputs against shocks of all kinds, from pandemics and natural disasters to price volatility and armed conflicts.