Agroecology Knowledge Hub

COVID-19 and Agroecology reading list


The external references on this page are provided for informational purposes only - they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by FAO.

20/05/2020 - 

See FAO COVID-19 website for more information.

This list will be continually updated and expanded as more resources become available (Last Update 27 May 2020).

 

FAO Updates

§ Sustainable crop production and COVID-19 Policy Brief

This policy brief is intended for decision-makers in developing Member Countries where food security and nutrition are underpinned by the outputs of hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers. It provides guidance on actionable measures for mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on crop production to support sustainable food systems, and ultimately enhancing the resilience of institutions and infrastructure to ensure the delivery of safe and nutritious food.

§ COVID-19 and smallholder producers’ access to markets

The COVID-19 pandemic is substantially affecting smallholder producers’ access to markets. Immediate impacts tend to be more severe for high-value commodities (perishable products), which are often produced by smallholder farmers. Several countries are putting in place a variety of measures to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on smallholder producers. This brief builds on lessons learned in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone during the 2014 Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic and during the 2007–2008 global food prices volatility crisis. It also analyses the initial challenges and responses by the countries that were affected at the early stages of the outbreak. The aim is to inform policymakers on options for mitigating the effects of the lockdown on food and agriculture with attention to smallholders’ access to markets. 

§ Urban food systems and COVID-19: The role of cities and local governments in responding to the emergency

The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting urban food systems worldwide, posing a number of challenges for cities and local governments that are obliged to deal with rapid changes in food availability, accessibility and affordability – which strongly impact the food security and nutrition situation of urban populations. The majority of the urban population in developing countries relies on informal sector activities and casual labour including those related to food systems (street food vendors and those working in wet markets) and have access to limited or no assets or savings. Policies to limit the effects of the virus such as lockdowns, or physical distancing can spell disaster for the livelihoods of those individuals and their families leading, inter alia, to food insecurity and deficient nutrition.

§ Maintaining a healthy diet during the COVID-19 pandemic

Good nutrition is very important before and after an infection. Infections take a toll on the body especially when these cause fever, the body needs extra energy and nutrients. Therefore, maintaining a healthy diet is very important during the COVID-19 pandemic. While no foods or dietary supplements can prevent COVID-19 infection, maintaining a healthy diet is an important part of supporting a strong immune system.

§ COVID-19 and the risk to food supply chains: How to respond?

Countries have shut down the economy to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Supermarket shelves remain stocked for now. But a protracted pandemic crisis could quickly put a strain on the food supply chains, a complex web of interactions involving farmers, agricultural inputs, processing plants, shipping, retailers and more. The shipping industry is already reporting slowdowns because of port closures, and logistics hurdles could disrupt the supply chains in the coming weeks. In order to avoid food shortages, it is imperative that countries keep the food supply chains going.

Reports and papers

§ COVID-19 and the crisis in food systems: Symptoms, causes, and potential solutions

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) has taken stock of the past 100 days amid the global pandemic, with a new communiqué on COVID-19 and the crisis in food systems. What are the symptoms and causes of this food crisis? Why are we in the midst of this perfect storm? What can be done immediately to avert more damage to society and the economy? And what are the structural changes we now need to protect people and the planet?

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) on April 2020

§ Preliminary monitoring report on the Impact of COVID-19 on the Human right to Food and Nutrition

This document presents FIAN International’s preliminary analysis of the impact of COVID-19 and the measures taken by governments around the world to contain the pandemic on the human right to food and nutrition (HRtFN). It is the result of a collective effort to monitor developments around the world over the last two weeks, and it is based on our mandate to support grassroots communities and social movements in their struggles to assert their rights. 

FIAN International on 8th April 2020

§  Interim Issues Paper on the Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE)

CFS High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) present an Issue Paper on COVID-19 and its impacts on food security, to provide a brief, preliminary analysis of the likely short, medium, and long-term impacts on our global food system and on food security and nutrition, broadly.

CFS on 24th March 2020

Media Coverage

§ As Food Supply Chain Breaks Down, Farm-To-Door CSAs Take Off

The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model's focus on local and fresh is ideally suited for a crisis that has people deeply worried about germs on lettuce, beets or broccoli as the crops make their way from the field to the kitchen counter.

NPR. org on 10 May 2020

§ Spoiled Milk, Rotten Vegetables and a Very Broken Food System

The coronavirus crisis demonstrates what is wrong with how the world feeds itself. We need to rejuvenate local and regional food systems to reduce the vulnerabilities that come with being too reliant on imported and corporate-dominated foods. 

The New York Times on 8 May 2020

§ Our fatal farming system: the other emergency

Producing differently and smarter: Freeing up land by reducing meat production by 45%, reviving ecosystems by dedicating 10% of farmland to agroecological infrastructures such as hedges, flower strips, and ponds, and preserving semi-natural grasslands. The transition to agroecology also involves phasing out pesticides and fertilizers and stopping burning food crops like maize and rapeseed for biofuels.

Birdlife on 5 May 2020

§ Coronavirus: Food supply chains 'need a rethink'

Buying food from local suppliers could be the answer to food shortages after lockdown ends. Buying local reduces food miles, it has a better environmental impact, it also involves less processing, so food is more nutritious. What the crisis is showing is how resilient small shops and small family farms are.

BBC News on 3 May 2020

§ ‘Return to normal’ from the COVID-19 crisis?

 Short supply chains have brought producers closer to consumers, avoiding profit-driven intermediaries. In parallel, small-scale producers and civil society groups have been jointly promoting agroecological methods; these depend on farmers’ knowledge of locally available natural resources, especially by reproducing biodiverse seeds and recycling nutrients, thus minimising environmental harm. 

The Open University on 3 May 2020

§ Five things we’ve learned about COVID-19, climate and food systems

The opportunities are plentiful — from embracing agroecological systems that nurture ecosystems and rebuild soil fertility to improving human, animal, and planetary health to initiating global, local, and regional processes that put food systems at the heart of policy- and decision-making — it’s just a matter of acting according to the future we want to see.

Medium.com on 30 April 2020

§ Local food solutions during the coronavirus crisis could have lasting benefits

 Eating the most nutritive foods to ensure better health and wellbeing is closely linked to the ability of communities to undertake innovative local agroecological practices. The agroecology approach aims to create sustainable food systems, and at the core of this approach is a set of practices based on 'locally adapted' farming.

Phys.org on 22 April 2020

 § The Coronavirus Pandemic Challenges The Global Food System And Should Brings Us Towards Agroecology/La pandemia de coronavirus desafía el sistema alimentario mundial y debería llevarnos hacia la agroecología (In English and Spanish)

Agroecology promotes agricultural systems that work in harmony with pre-existing ecologies. Using science, we seek to create agricultural systems that enhance biodiversity, promote closed-loop systems, increase soil health, and eliminate the fragile dependence on external synthetic inputs. 

The Costa Rica news April 2020

§ Covid-19 response: inclusion of rural youth in Sub-Saharan Africa

The COVID-19 crisis cannot permit a setback to progress in reducing rural poverty. At this challenging time, we are reminded of the importance of international cooperation. Cooperation that responds to the immediate impacts of the crisis while also protecting the needs of one of the most vulnerable groups – the rural youth.

GoobJoog News on 1st May 2020

§ Halt destruction of nature or suffer even worse pandemics, say world’s top scientists

“Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a ‘perfect storm’ for the spillover of diseases.”

The Guardian on 27 April 2020

§ The solution to food insecurity is food sovereignty

The COVID-19 pandemic is pushing many to recognise the importance and urgency of food sovereignty - the right of people to determine their own food and agricultural systems and their right to produce and consume healthy and culturally appropriate food.

Al Jazeera on 25 April 2020

§ Opinion: Local food solutions during the coronavirus crisis could have lasting benefits

Eating the most nutritive foods to ensure better health and wellbeing is closely linked to the ability of communities to undertake innovative local agroecological practices. The agroecology approach aims to create sustainable food systems, and at the core of this approach is a set of practices based on 'locally adapted' farming.

Phys Org on 22 April 2020

§ 2020 – a Super Year for Biodiversity?

Even before COVID-19, itself a product of the abuse of biodiversity, most Parties to the CBD recognised that we are at the most critical ‘fork in the road’ which humans have ever faced and that we need to organise society along a path that will enable us to live within planetary boundaries.

Agroecology Now! April 2020

§ When biodiversity fails, human health is on the line­­

To protect ecosystems and human health, countries must conserve natural areas and their rich assemblages of microbial, plant and animal species. 

African Arguments on 6 April 2020

§ The Pandemic Is Not a Natural Disaster

Self-isolation is key if we are to stop the pandemic—and yet the need for isolation is, in itself, an acknowledgment of our deep integration with our surroundings. To fully respond to what’s happened, we need to reflect on the worldwide ecological networks that bind all us together.

New Yorker on 13 April

§ We Need to Change How We Grow Our Food

COVID-19 has reminded us we cannot take our interrelation for granted — with each other or with nature. We must rethink an industrial food system that ruptures these vital relationships and step up our efforts to support practices that restore and sustain them. By ramping up private and public investment for agroecology now; we can feed the world and strengthen our resilience against this crisis — and the ones yet to come.

Heated on 8 April 2020

§ Applying the hard lessons of coronavirus to the biodiversity crisis

This year was supposed to be a ‘Super Year for Nature,’ with a number of global meetings; a World Conservation Congress, a UN Ocean Conference, and a UN Nature Summit – all culminating in a global biodiversity conference that would agree on a decade-long 'Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework'. This was supposed to be the year that launched the Decade of Restoration, and that finally acknowledged nature-based solutions in climate negotiations. But COVID-19 had other plans. We must learn and adapt faster than ever, and the virus has lessons that apply to the global crises of biodiversity loss.

UNDP on 27 March 2020

Como nunca antes, la pandemia de coronavirus nos revela la naturaleza sistémica de nuestro mundo: la salud humana, animal y ecológica están estrechamente vinculadas. Sin duda el COVID -19, e es un llamado de atención para la humanidad a repensar nuestro modo de desarrollo capitalista y altamente consumista y las formas en que nos relacionamos con la naturaleza. Los tiempos exigen una respuesta integral a la crisis actual, donde se aborden

Des informémonos on 24 March 2020

§ Farmers markets are vital during COVID-19, but they need more support

Farmers' markets have long served as a way to increase food access in low-income areas, support small farmers and local businesses, and bolster a strong, locally empowering economy. Now, with food insecurity heightened, the agricultural food supply chain at risk, and local economies devastated by businesses closures, farmers' markets can fill critical health and economic gap. But they need federal, state, and local commitment to allow them to remain open and safe as essential services amid the pandemic.

Brookings on 8 April 2020

§ COVID-19 lockdowns threaten Africa’s vital informal urban food trade

Informal food markets are vital to feeding African cities, venues the poor rely on to buy and sell fresh food. As governments impose COVID-19 restrictions, informal food traders should be helped rather than persecuted. Developing hygiene practices and clean water supplies with market associations, allowing more dispersed market sites during epidemics, and extending safety nets and health benefits found in the formal markets to informal market workers.

IFPRI blog on 31 March 2020

§  Is factory farming to blame for coronavirus?

Scientists are tracing the path of Sars-CoV-2 from a wild animal host – but we need to look at the part played in the outbreak by industrial food production.

The Guardian on 28 March 2020

§  Agroecology: Farming for a Better Future?

With a global pandemic tightening its grip around the world and photos of empty supermarket shelves flooding social media, there’s never been a better time to consider where our food comes from. Asger Mindegaard explores how ‘agroecology’ can make our food production more resilient, rebuild healthy ecosystems and perhaps even prevent future outbreaks like COVID-19.

Meta by EEB on 24 March 2020

§  This Pandemic Shows How We Can Improve the U.S. Food System

  Every society must find the right balance between market freedom and government responsibility. Across place and time, societies have made different choices about where to draw this line, suggesting that the mantra that there is no alternative to the current system is patently false. COVID-19 presents new threats to our food system and to every other sector of our society. Finding ways to use this crisis to recalibrate this balance to meet the current and future threats is an urgent priority.

Heated on 23 March 2020 

§  How will COVID-19 affect Africa’s food systems?

Food supplies shouldn’t be too badly affected, but social restrictions will make it hard for many to buy and access food.

African arguments on 25 March 2020

§  Crop diversity can buffer the effects of climate change

Researchers found that farms with diverse crops planted together provide more secure, stable habitats for wildlife and are more resilient to climate change than the single-crop monoculture that dominates today's agriculture industry.

Science Daily on 18 March 2020

§  Destruction of Habitat and Loss of Biodiversity are Creating the Perfect Conditions For Diseases Like COVID-19 To Emerge

As habitat and biodiversity loss increase globally, the novel coronavirus outbreak may be just the beginning of mass pandemics

Ensia on 17 March 2020

§  Where did coronavirus come from, and where will it take us?

An interview with Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu

Uneven Earth on 12 March 2020

§  Coronavirus and the Need for a Social Ecology

Pandemics are ecological issues. Viral outbreaks often emerge at the intersection of human society and wildlife, and a relationship of domination that the former has with the latter.

Institute for Social Ecology undated  

§  Social Contagion

A fascinating long read by a left-wing Chinese journal examining the historical and contemporary nexus between pandemics and economics, and what this crisis reveals about health systems and state responses.

Chuangcn blog 26 February 2020

§ The impact of the pandemic on farmers markets and short food supply system in Brazil/Impacto da epidemia nas feiras e iniciativas de comercialização direta (in Portuguese)

The need for social isolation lived all over the country as a way to contain the spreading of COVID-19 has deeply affected food supply. In some cities, governmental measures guide new standards for the supermarkets and grocery stores such as the distinctive opening hours for most vulnerable groups and the reinforcement of the cleaning and hygiene practices. However, when it comes to farmers' markets, second favorite place to buy foodstuffs for Brazilians, the creation of standards becomes more difficult and complex to implement due to the diverse dynamic of the functioning of these channels. The challenges brought by this pandemic range from the asepsis of the exposition structures, the minimal distance between the stands, payment methods, packaging, until the maintenance of the farmers' markets itself face the necessity of a safeguard social interaction.

Sul21 on 25 March 2020

§  Think Exotic Animals Are to Blame for the Coronavirus? Think Again.

The race to finger the animal source of COVID-19, the coronavirus currently ensnaring more than 150 million people in quarantines and cordons sanitaires in China and elsewhere, is on. The virus’s animal origin is a critical mystery to solve. But speculation about which wild creature originally harbored the virus obscures a more fundamental source of our growing vulnerability to pandemics: the accelerating pace of habitat loss.

The Nation on 18 February 2020

§  Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns

We need to have policies in place so the labour force can keep doing their job. Protect people too, but we need the labour force. Major countries have yet to implement these sorts of policies to ensure that food can keep moving.

The Guardian on 26 March 2020

§  Coronavirus: 'Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief

Nature is sending us a message with the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis, according to the UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen. Andersen said humanity was placing too many pressures on the natural world with damaging consequences and warned that failing to take care of the planet meant not taking care of ourselves.

The Guardian on 25 March 2020

§ Four ways COVID-19 will change food systems and food security

This article analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 in four aspects of the food system: individual behaviors affecting food, collective behavior and popular culture, institutional changes and infrastructures and public policies. The author claims that food system outcomes will depend almost entirely on whether the political, health and media powers-that-be continue to control, limit and focus health communications around COVID-19 — as if it’s strictly a matter of a virus that should only be managed by social distancing to reduce contagion.

The Medium on 27 March 2020

 

Social Movements, Civil society and Non-governmental organizations

§ COVID-19 forces us to confront food insecurity and hunger in South Africa: Agroecology offers solutions in a crisis

Not only does agroecology increase household food and nutrition security by providing safe, nutritious, seasonal and culturally appropriate foods, the practice of agroecology also contributes positively to our socio-economic outcomes such as health and education, while protecting from disease through the stronger immune system.

BioWatch South Africa on 29 April 2020

 § Anchored in solidarity: how agroecology can bring us out of the crisis

In this current crisis, people on the frontlines of poverty and injustice will suffer the most. Among them are smallholder farmers and agricultural workers, who harvest and transport the food we eat every day. Governments must take urgent measures to support small-scale farmers not only with social protection programs, which are important but also with structural solutions that will ensure long-term food and economic security.

ActionAid USA on 23 April 2020

§ Garantir o direito à alimentação e combater a fome em tempos de coronavírus/ Guaranteeing the right to food and fighting hunger in times of coronavirus: life and human dignity first! (In Portuguese)

The coronavirus pandemic once again highlights the links between human health and nature, and calls on us to rethink the foundations of our food system. Once again, we face several negative externalities of industrial agriculture that concentrates wealth, degrades, contaminates, fosters the spread of diseases, dehumanizes. It promotes the violation of the rights to land and territory of family farmers, indigenous peoples and traditional peoples and communities that respect nature and produce our food. We are now invited to defend other paradigms of sustainable and more biodiverse production as agroecology proposes.

Aliança pela Alimentação Adequada e Saudável on 23 March 2020

§ PAA - Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos: Comida Saudável para o Povo/PAA - Food Acquisition Programme: Healthy Food for the People (In Portuguese)

Consideramos fundamental que as organizações da agricultura familiar e da economia solidária formalizem aos governos estaduais, municipais e à Conab o interesse em fornecer alimentos para o PAA. E que os movimentos sociais das cidades pressionem os governadores, prefeitos e parlamentares, cobrando a efetivação do PAA para a garantia do direito aos alimentos saudáveis e diversificados produzidos pela agricultura familiar e camponesa e pelos povos e comunidades tradicionais.

Articulação National de Agroecologia

§ La alimentación local, de calidad y sostenible: seguridad frente a los riesgos sanitarios globales/Local, quality and sustainable food: security in the face of global health risks (In Spanish)

Desde la Red de Ciudades por la Agroecología queremos resaltar el papel de las políticas alimentarias locales para fortalecer nuestras comunidades frente a crisis como la del COVID-19. Entendemos la alimentación de calidad y sostenible como un sistema básico y estratégico de aprovisionamiento de nuestras ciudades y pueblos, equiparable al abastecimiento de agua o energía. Hoy es más evidente que nunca que debemos cuidar, de forma integral, la salud de las personas y el medio ambiente. 

La Red de Ciudades por la Agroecología in April 2020

§ People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty proposes “radical” food policies for G20’s COVID-19 action plan

An international movement of grassroots groups of small food producers and food sovereignty advocates urged the Group of 20 (G20) major economies to implement “radical” food policy reforms in its joint G20 Action Plan in Response to COVID-19.

People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty on 15 April 2020

§ Secure land rights mean resilience for rural communities in Asia in the face of COVID-19

Among those rendered most vulnerable during these times are those with insecure land rights. In these circumstances, it becomes clear how land rights are unequivocally tied to the fulfillment of other human rights such as the right to shelter, food, livelihood, and health.

Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) on 12 April 2020 

§ The next harvest is even more important now – Biovision statement

Biovision explains how the situation looks like for the employees after enacting its prepared pandemic plan and for their project partners in sub-Saharan Africa.

Biovision on 10 April 2020

§ Thunder Bay & Area Food Strategy COVID-19 Statement

The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the lack of resilience in our local food system because of our dependence on imports from outside our community. The “just-enough, just-in-time” food system and long supply chains dominated by large corporations are fragile at the best of times.  As a network that is focused on the health and well-being of all people involved in our regional food system, the Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy (TBAFS) is committed to addressing immediate food-related needs along with the underlying concerns about food security, food supply and long-term sustainability. 

§ Community Supported Agriculture is a Safe and Resilient Alternative to Industrial Agriculture in the Time of COVID-19

The international campaign we are all engaged in to reduce our tragic losses to the Covid-19 crisis is just a rehearsal for the big campaign that lies ahead – to preserve and build sustainable local and territorial food systems that connect producers and consumers and provide healthy, nutritious food for all. URGENCI ishowing the weaknesses and gaps in the global food distribution system.

§ Rio de Janeiro's Agroecology Articulation releases letter on alerts and guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic/Articulação de Agroecologia do Rio de Janeiro divulga carta sobre alertas e orientações durante a pandemia do coronavírus (In Portuguese)

A Articulação de Agroecologia do Rio de Janeiro (AARJ) divulgou na última terça-feira (31) uma carta aberta sobre alertas e orientações  durante a pandemia do COVID-19, o coronavírus. O documento é uma tentativa de visibilizar a produção e fomentar a comercialização dos produtos de agricultores familiares e agroecológicos do estado, garantindo a soberania e a segurança alimentar durante essa conjuntura.

§ COVID-19:  A message from AFSA: Un message de l'AFSA (In English and French)

African Alliance for Food Sovereignty (AFSA) stands in solidarity with the brothers and sisters in many and diverse constituencies across Africa. 

African Alliance for Food Sovereignty on 1 April 2020

§ CSM Preliminary messages on COVID-19

Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples' Mechanism for relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security preliminary messages for the CFS Advisory Group and Bureau Meeting on COVID-19 and its impacts on food security and nutrition.

Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples' Mechanism on 25 March 2020

§  COVID-19: Several members of La Via Campesina highlight the vulnerability of peasants and workers

As Corona Virus spreads across countries and continents, several members of La Via Campesina have issued statements highlighting the precarious situation of peasants and migrant workers around the world.

La Via Campesina on 18 March

§  COVID 19: Urgent support needed for rural poor, migrants, and urban workers says La Via Campesina South Asia

La Via Campesina South Asia on 25 March 2020

§  Statement by the Regional Secretariat: Coronavirus Pandemic in the Shadow of Capitalist Exploitation and Imperialist Domination of People and Nature

The Coronavirus pandemic is threatening to truly become a humanitarian disaster at a global scale. It coincides with and exacerbates a multifaceted global crisis: political, economic, social, environmental and climatic.

North African Network for Food Sovereignty on 25 March 2020

§  On The COVID-19 Crisis And The People’s Right To Food, Health, Livelihood

Joint statement of PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) and People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)

PAN Asia Pacific on 16 March 2020

 

Resources, practices and experiences to mitigate COVID-19 food crisis

§ Insights from Melbourne, Australia during COVID-19: Civil society leading the response to strengthen the city region food system

Increasing local production and distribution of food within Melbourne’s city region could increase the resilience of the city’s food system to future shocks and stresses, and reduce dependence on more distant sources of food. It could also help to build a stronger circular food economy for the region, making better use of valuable city waste streams to produce food, including recycled water from the city’s water treatment plants and organic waste.

City Region Food Systems Programmes on 12 May 2020 

§ How Quito's urban and peri-urban agriculture contributes to the COVID-19 response

The pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of the world's essential systems, and the fragility of the socio-ecological order.  Without a doubt, COVID-19 is a call to humanity to rethink our highly consumerist, capitalist development model and the ways in which we relate to nature.

City Region Food Systems Programmes on 11 May 2020 

§ Millions forced to choose between hunger or COVID-19

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers face various issues to continue feeding people but also to find alternative distribution channels for their products. With the closure of markets in many countries and the shift of consumer demand to certain types of products, such as flour and eggs, different initiatives have flourished to support local and small-scale producers. This item of news aims at sharing experiences and inspiring other mountain actors to help them overcome the current challenges.

GRAIN on 15 May 2020

§ How to support mountain agriculture during the COVID-19 crisis? 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers face various issues to continue feeding people but also to find alternative distribution channels for their products. With the closure of markets in many countries and the shift of consumer demand to certain types of products, such as flour and eggs, different initiatives have flourished to support local and small-scale producers. This item of news aims at sharing experiences and inspiring other mountain actors to help them overcome the current challenges.

European Association of Mountain areas

§ Rural responses to the COVID-19 crisis

This page provides examples of projects and initiatives primarily launched by rural communities in coping with the COVID-19 emergency, supporting rural businesses and fostering solidarity with those more vulnerable in this exceptional situation. It also provides information about European Commission initiatives and actions aimed at alleviating the current difficulties faced by rural Europe.

European Network for Rural Development 

§ Responding to COVID-19 Pandemic for Food Security in the Pacific

In order to alleviate the impact of COVID-19 on food and nutrition security situation in PICTs, the Pacific Community (SPC), being the regional technical agency, is working with its member countries in developing short to medium term support packages as a direct response to the impacts of COVID-19 dovetailed to specific needs of the members. The main objective is to ensure food and nutrition security for most vulnerable communities and to establish the basis for medium to long term economic recovery needs of countries.

APIRAS on 8 May 2020

§ 2 bold projects bring produce from farmers to consumers

When the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic forced restaurants to shut down, Filipino farmers were left with no one to sell their harvest to. There was also the logistical problem of transporting the produce from the farms to the cities. It was a setback that could have crippled the agriculture industry. Fortunately, two relentless individuals came to the rescue.

Lifestyle.inquirer.net on 23 April 2020

§ Farmers have their own struggles and their own solutions!

Shamika Mone gives us a snapshot of how farmers from India, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Philippines, Zambia, Indonesia, South Africa, Uganda, Ghana, and Puerto Rico, are dealing with COVID19. In many cases, demand for organic produce is increasing and farmers are exploring opportunities such as organic pop up stores to reach their customers in times of social distancing and restricted movement.

Organic Without Borders on 22 April 2020

§ Database of the Food for Cities Network discussions on COVID-19

This database will be updated regularly to provide an overview of the discussions that are currently taking place on this forum regarding the specific topic of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban food systems. The Food for Cities Network is a forum of public sector officials (national and local), development practitioners, academia, civil society, private sector, and activists, facilitated by FAO. It started in 2009 to foster dialogue among different actors and share experiences and resources as a community. The aim of the network is to bring food systems into urban planning and to strengthen rural-urban linkages to build a more sustainable city region food system. 

§ City Region Food Systems in Antananarivo, Madagascar: A sustainable approach to respond to COVID-19 outbreak

COVID-19 outbreak has become an opportunity to urge decision-makers to put the CRFS approach into the agenda of priorities to enhance the food system resilience. If well implemented, good practices will be capitalised in favour of a multi-sector food strategy, contributing to a more sustainable, economic and social approach for the benefit of the food system of Antananarivo city region and the whole national territory.

§ COVID-19 Response: Let’s Localize Like Never Before

List of resources outlining some actions to support local farmers both at the grassroots and at a policy level during this time of crisis as well as some examples of community solidarity being put into action during the pandemic

§ El Ayuntamiento  de Valladolid, Espagna apoyará a la producción agroecológica local y de cercanía/The City Council of Valladolid, Spain will support local agroecological production (In Spanish)

El Ayuntamiento de Valladolid está trabajando en la promoción de una alimentación más sana y sostenible de la población vallisoletana, a través del apoyo a la producción agroecológica local y de cercanía.

§ Feeding New York - The Plan for Keeping the City Fed During the COVID-19 Public Health Crisis

“Feeding New York” is the City’s plan to feed hungry New Yorkers throughout this crisis and protect the security of the food supply chain.

§ Global food system perspectives on COVID-19

A living, open-access map of experiences, perspectives, opportunities and questions from researchers around the world about the impact of COVID-19 and other health emergencies on food systems, agriculture and nutrition. Developed by the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH) Academy and its members. 

§ COVID-19 and our Food Systems

The purpose of the document is to have an understanding of what impacts COVID-19 is having on food systems,  locally and globally, and from all different angles (impact on consumers, on producers, small or large, on prices, on retail etc.), as shown by a variety of articles, blogs, expert notes etc. 

§ Farmers Markets Respond to COVID-19 — Best Practices, Examples, and Resources

Compiled information and advice from farmers markets, state associations, health departments and the Centers for Disease Control from Farmers Market Coalition.

§ Corona in Tanzania: Training in hygiene included in organic agriculture courses

Alexander Wostry head of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT) explains in this interview done by Biovision, how they are adapting their training plan to allow them to inform the farmers about the Coronavirus.

§ Practical Advice on COVID-19: Purchase and Distribution of Food

As an affected area adopts more and more strict epidemic prevention measures or policies, some residents may not be able to go out and buy food because of strict isolation measures, and specific groups, such as solitary senior citizens, may lack convenient shopping conditions. How do we ensure that everyone has access to a stable source of food while obliged to stay at home during this special period?

§ The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the diets of Hanoi’s urban poor

The urban poor in Vietnam depends heavily on informal food systems. How will COVID-19 lockdown measures impact their food security and what will be the knock-on effects for daily life?

§ COVID-19 Farmers Market Advocacy Toolkit

 The following tools and information have been created and aggregated to support in advocating for farmers' markets to remain open during emergency orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

§ The coronavirus lockdowns are making city dwellers realise how crucial urban farms can be in feeding the urban population

People, planners and governments should all be rethinking of how land is used in cities. Urban farming can improve food security and nutrition, reduce climate change impacts, and lower stress.

§ Local government policies to support food access during the COVID-19 pandemic – an index

This index includes formal municipal policies that accelerate, prioritize or facilitate food access during the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergency periods through measures that exceed ordinary non-emergency-time policies; and/or specifically prioritize health and/or equity considerations.

§ IFPRI Resources and Analyses on COVID-19 (also known as Coronavirus)

IFPRI is curating a series of analyses from IFPRI researchers and guest contributors on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on national and global food and nutrition security, poverty, and development. The webpage will continue to be updated with new analyses in the coming weeks and months.

§ Stratégies alimentaires territoriales : les grandes villes font preuve d’ingéniosité pour soutenir un secteur sous tension/Territorial food strategies: big cities show ingenuity in sustaining a stressed sector (In French)

Pour faciliter l’échange de bonnes pratiques entre ses membres, France urbaine a fait circuler une première note recensant les initiatives mises en place dans les territoires, permettant de répondre à des situations d’urgence, notamment en direction des plus précaires. Ces initiatives constituent autant d’exemples qui permettent de dupliquer des dispositifs qui fonctionnent et ce, dans un contexte d’urgence.

§ Food security in Pandemic

This tool will introduce you to the basic elements of food security and ways in which an influenza pandemic may impact it. You will also find measures that can be taken to prevent, alleviate, and respond to many of a pandemic’s negative consequences on food security. 

§ How New York City Is Feeding Children on the Front Lines of a Pandemic

New York City feeds over 1.1 million kids every day. Now, with public schools shut due to coronavirus, its mission is much harder—and even more important.

§ Sustainable Food Cities Digest - food supply, food for vulnerable people, local action and funding

 Sustainable Food Cities (SFC) endeavors to support the official government and public health advice on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.  

§ Manger aux temps de Coronavirus/Eating in time of Coronavirus - Newsletter of local experiences to address the global pandemic (In French)

 As the containment decision was being announced, a group of people and of organizations wanted to capture ad hoc what the coronavirus crisis reveals, disrupts, provokes in the food systems: from our plate to the farms where our food comes from, whether it's through short circuits and local or distant supply chains. Producers, artisans, food processing companies, convenience stores, supermarkets, transporters....all are being put to the test of an unprecedented crisis, which is leading them to adapt, to find solutions, inventing new possibilities. The representatives include research, agricultural and rural development, associations, the social economy, etc. 

 §  List of Resources, Models/Examples, Funding, And Other Shared Practices In COVID-19 Response 

Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future’s Food Policy Networks project has compiled a list of resources, models/examples, funding, and other shared practices in COVID-19 response useful for food policy councils and other groups working at the local and state level. The resources focus on:

·  FPCs’ roles of convening, collaborating and communicating about their local food systems (e.g., sharing communications from FPCs about COVID-19, virtual convening resources, data collection tools and examples)

·  Food policy recommendations related to COVID-19

·  Supporting communities (e.g., mutual aid and healing, emergency food distribution, community gardens, volunteers and food safety, food resiliency)

·  Supporting food businesses and workers (e.g., farmers markets, local farms, virtual local food platforms, etc.) 

§ COVID-19 and food security resources

The Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) is an international network of cities and city-based partner organizations which focuses on the relationships between rapid urbanization, informality, inclusive growth and urban food systems in the Global South. The HCP aims to provide solutions to the challenge of building sustainable cities, policies and programs that promote food security in cities. The HCP currently operates in China, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique and South Africa.

§  COVID-19 resources by PA Farm Markets, LLC

PA Farm Markets, LLC is a membership organization made up of Market managers, owners, and vendors that provide services for the benefit of its members.

§  Resource lists on Food Systems and Nutrition responses

Contributing to the coronavirus pandemic response, the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN) has compiled a list of available resources and key readings with a focus on nutrition and food systems. This list will be continually updated and expanded as more resources become available.

§ Kids’ Hunger Doesn’t Take a Spring Break: While closed for COVID-19, California districts can serve meals over spring break

School districts can keep providing their students with healthy meals over the spring break, even while they are closed for safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, these meals help kids stay healthy and ready to learn when school resumes. They also help families stretch their food budget by offering their children meals free of charge and bring revenue into financially strapped districts. In California, Governor Newsom has made continued noncongregate school meal service on school days a necessary condition of state funding during school closures related to COVID-19.

§ $27 Million in grant funding available for farmers markets and local food projects

On March 9, 2020  USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) announced the availability of $27 million in funding for the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP). FMLFPP has two subprograms – the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) and the Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP) – with a separate Request for Applications (RFA) for each subprogram. Both programs provide grants on a competitive basis for a wide variety of direct-to-consumer and local food marketing projects.

 

Multimedia materials: Videos, Audio interviews, Webinars

§ Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples' Mechanism Webinar “Learning about the COVID crisis in the Committee on World Food Security” 

The CSM webinar addressed the impact of COVID-19 on food systems and policy responses to it. The panel comprises of speakers from international organizations and the academic and research world, from different regions, and followed by an interactive debate with CFS members and participants.

§ A Recipe for Disaster: Globalised food systems, structural inequality and COVID-19

Transnational Institute (TNI) webinar is with Rob Wallace in dialogue with agrarian justice activists from Myanmar, Indonesia, Palestine and Germany. The webinar aims to answer questions like What different circumstances do people around the world face, and how will these impact ongoing struggles for more just food systems and societies? And, by extension, what does this tell us about the kind of resistant and resilient systems we need to build to replace our current food system?

§ How global agriculture grew a pandemic - An interview with biologist Rob Wallace, of the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota

The COVID-19 crisis was preventable—if only we’d listened to the epidemiologists sounding the alarm.

The American Scholar on 13th March 2020

§ Ag2Nut/ANH Academy Webinar: community discussion on COVID-19 and food systems

Nutrition and food systems are now more urgent concerns than ever in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch the community discussion webinar on the impacts of COVID-19 on our work. 

§ Young Farmers Talks, COVID-19

 Holly Rippon-Butler, Land Access Program Director at the National Young Farmers Coalition, talks about what we need to do to support young farmers in the face of COVID-19. “We need to make investments for young farmers as a resource for this country,” says Rippon-Butler.

§  Podcast channel for latest on what farms need to do to manage the many legal ramifications in a pandemic worldwide crisis

§  Roundtable discussion: Food policy councils and COVID- 19

As day-to-day operations grind to a halt with the spread of COVID-19, the pandemic threatens to highlight and exacerbate existing inequities in society. On Friday, March 20, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future’s Food Policy Networks project hosted a discussion about how food policy councils can play a key role in connecting efforts among local governments, non-profits, food banks, farmers, schools, and grocery stores to reduce barriers to food access and security; support local food producers, workers, and businesses; and advocate for policies that protect our communities during these uncertain times. Speakers included: Heather Bruskin, Montgomery County Food Council (Maryland) Noel Didla, MS Food Policy Council and MS Food Justice Collaborative Michaela Freiburger, Dubuque County Food Policy Council (Iowa) Dawn Plummer, Pittsburgh Food Policy Council Nessa Richman, Rhode Island Food Policy Council Dana Wood, Safe and Abundant Nutrition Alliance (Colorado)

§  Video by prof. Sergio Schneider, from UFRGS, Brazil on the potential of family farming to respond to the food security and nutrition crisis generated by the COVID-19

The video analyzes the critical role of family farming to respond to the challenges of food supply and food security in the context of urbanized societies that are facing the challenges generated by the Coronavirus-COVID Crisis19, March 2020.

§ Thriving Farmers Market during a pandemic 

With most farmers' markets closing due to the Coronavirus this one in Asheville, NC is thriving. I show you how they made this successful system work with social distancing in place and an honor system payment method.

 

 

 Photo credit: C.Schubert