In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, food systems are at the crossroads of human well-being, economic development, and environmental state. Empty shelves in supermarkets of cities can be frightening. Not just in cities, rural areas also have experienced empty fields and loss of perishable produce, and accumulation of non-perishable produce. On top of that, the world economy is exposed to health and financial shocks as climate changes and the global population grows.
With respect to its impact on the global food system, which also considers the pre-and post-production of food as well as its distribution and consumption interrelationship with political, social, and environmental dimensions, this economic slowdown has greatly affected the progress towards achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the onset of the crisis, food supply chains were strained as many countries imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and people across and within borders. As a result, the challenge was not the availability of food but easy access to it. Next, anxious over the uncertainties linked to the food supply, some countries restricted food exports, making this situation even more challenging.
However, in uncertainty, new possibilities arise, and new pathways open. Change creates the conditions for transformation. We now have an opportunity—perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—to learn from past weaknesses and create food systems that are more healthy, sustainable, equitable, and resilient. On a recent World Food Day, the call was clearer than ever: we must improve the current food systems to drive economic growth sustainably and save the Earth from environmental collapse.
Thinking ahead to post-COVID 19 food systems, it is important to ask, what are we learning about our level of preparedness? And what next steps are suggested by food system weaknesses at local, regional, and global scales in the context of the international pandemic? Food systems, though complex and not as easy to address as a single focus disease threat, offer multiple challenges and solutions at the same time. To navigate these complex and dynamic circumstances and amplify positive results, we need to consider:
The unhealthy state of food systems
The COVID-19 crisis has been a ‘stress test’ for our global food systems – and they are failing. There is evidence that food supply chains falter in the face of external shocks. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program anticipate that a ‘hunger pandemic’ may soon top the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, it is the poor and vulnerable who are affected the most. According to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, in 2018, approximately 820 million people went to bed hungry. A third lacked essential nutrients. What’s more, up to a third of the food we produced was wasted. Today, malnourished people around the world are suffering disproportionately the consequences of the virus. The human toll comes with huge economic costs, including lost incomes and the rise of unemployment rates.
We need to accelerate the transition of regional food systems towards more resilient and sustainable models, including low-carbon solutions and more diversified production and supplies.
The constraints of food systems go beyond failing to feed the world well. In addition, we are experiencing export restrictions and price hikes. Also, for decades, thinking and strategies around food have developed in silos, with little coordination between communities working on nutrition, agriculture, food, environment, water, health, climate, employment, trade, or transport. This has generated serious problems – from policies that provide cheap calories but lead to high rates of diet-related diseases, to market innovations that prioritize efficiency above all and production systems that contribute to climate change and biodiversity loss.
These failures demand that we ask not only how to repair this damage, but how to fundamentally reimagine food systems to make them more nourishing, resilient, and sustainable;
Transparency and accountability
COVID-19-related disruptions to global supply chains have also focused attention on the preference of consumers and businesses to know where their products come from. A recent article in The Economist identified the need to make global food systems more transparent, traceable, and accountable so that diseases are less likely to jump undetected from animal to human. The article pointed to certification and quality standards as important tools for achieving this.
Certification systems are now developing a wider and more innovative set of tools that allow producers, consumers, and companies to track agricultural products from farm to fork. Traceability systems are being strengthened to show where products originate and how they move through the supply chain so that sustainability risks can be continuously identified and investments made to address them. Satellite imagery is increasingly being used to monitor deforestation and other environmental risks such as water use and erosion, which threaten farmer productivity and incomes and which put the long-term viability of entire agricultural supply chains at risk. These kinds of data-driven risk assessment and improvement approaches will be key to building up more resilient and sustainable supply chains.
Re-think supply chains for a diverse and healthy diet
Food choices matter. If all humans shifted their diets to include more fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, fish, and whole grains, we would see substantial reductions in diet-related disease, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and stroke – many of which increase the risk of serious illness from COVID-19. Yet the global food system isn’t built for diverse, healthy diets: according to FAO, 80 percent of the world’s food supply is grain and grain-fed livestock, while fruit, vegetables, pulses, and fish are expensive and much less accessible.
We must redesign supply chains with nutrition and human health in mind. We can begin by supporting local food systems with shorter, fairer, and cleaner supply chains that address local priorities, while configuring national and global trade to promote diversity and reduce supply risks.
Build strong connections between the environment and food policy
How farmers produce food determines not only the fertility of their soils but the health of the planet. The food systems of tomorrow must embrace the One Health vision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and advance positive interactions between human health, livestock health, wildlife health, and ecosystem health. This approach can minimize the spread of disease, ensure adequate water for crop irrigation, reduce destructive flooding and wildfires, and protect farmlands from intense climate events, while also sustaining wild biodiversity and essential forest, grassland, and wetland habitats. Farmers should be helped to diversify their incomes and incentivized to farm both productively and as environmental stewards.
In 2021, the global community has developed a new action framework for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, advanced action under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and begin the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration. Sustainable food systems must be central to these strategies.
Strengthen, democratize and localize food systems planning
To approach food systems transformation holistically, policy-makers must democratize planning and invite all actors working in and alongside food systems – producers, businesses, social and environmental organizations, health workers, farmers, consumers, scientists, and policy-makers – to be part of the effort. While national policy-makers can provide critical perspectives and frameworks for change, local and regional stakeholders must be able to shape their own food systems to reflect local values, resources, and priorities.
Moving forward
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerabilities and failures of our food systems, and the urgent need to build back better. According to the International Monetary Fund, urgent reforms need to be made in food systems across the world to avoid the ‘hunger pandemic’ as forecasted by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the rebuilding of economies after the COVID-19 crisis offers a unique opportunity to transform the global food system and make it resilient to future shocks, ensuring environmentally sustainable and healthy nutrition for all. Food systems are at the crossroads of human, animal, economic and environmental health. Ignoring this exposes the world economy to ever-larger health and financial shocks as climate changes and the global population grows.
Now, we have a choice: to go back to the old “normal,” or to work together and emerge stronger. A nourishing, resilient, and sustainable food future is within our grasp.
