Informal food chains and agrobiodiversity need strengthening—not weakening—to address food security amidst the COVID-19 crisis in South America

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis is worsening food insecurity by undermining informal food chains. We focus on impacts involving the informal food chains that incorporate the resilience-enhancing biodiversity of food and agriculture known as agrobiodiversity. Our analysis addresses how informal food chains and agrobiodiversity are impacted by policies and interventions amidst COVID-19 disruptions. Our methodology relies on research in Peru with a focus on the cites and surrounding areas of Lima, Arequipa, Cusco, Huancayo, and Huánuco. We extend these insights to similar challenges and opportunities across western South America and other word regions. We utilize the four-part Agrobiodiversity Knowledge Framework to guide our examination of agrobiodiversity-related processes that interconnect governance, nutrition, agroecology, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results detail three links of informal food chains that are being disrupted and yet can offer resilience. These are food retailing, logistics and transportation, and seed systems. Utilization of the Agrobiodiversity Knowledge Framework cuts through highly complex issues to elaborate key food-security difficulties facing informal systems and how they can be strengthened to provide more resilience. We identify the specific roles of agrobiodiversity in resilience-enhancing processes that need strategic policy and program support. Results identify ways to augment the resilience of informal food chains using agrobiodiversity and the empowerment of social groups and organizations in urban food systems and rural communities. We conclude that the disruptions triggered by the global COVID-19 pandemic highlight the need to use agrobiodiversity as an instrument for resilience in informal food chains.

COVID-19, Livestock Systems and Food Security in Developing Countries: A Systematic Review of an Emerging Literature

“…In this regard, Linkov and Trump [ 62 ] indicate that increasing uncertainty and complexity in global (livestock) systems entail addressing the role of preparedness and recovery from disruption, as neglecting these aspects may lead to a limitation in the understanding of how livestock supply chain can maintain resilience against the COVID-19 and future pandemics. Furthermore, elements of this subset of the surveyed literature emphasize the importance of addressing the broader sustainability challenges, and the need to ensure the functionality of domestic and regional livestock markets and transform sustainably livestock sectors in developing countries to build resilient systems with higher preparedness and capacity to anticipate and adapt to new challenges and burgeoning natural and environmental risks [ 42 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 ].…”

Negative effects of covid-19 pandemic on agriculture: systematic literature review in the frameworks of vulnerability, resilience and risks involved

“…Adaptive resilience capacity of agriculture systems is related to internal actions taken after the disaster, to go for recovery and to adapt to covid-16 impacts. The example can be new business models (Adnan & Nordin, 2020;Bhavani & Gopinath, 2020;Henry, 2020;Lal et al, 2020) and supply chains modifications, urban-rural partnerships and other innovations (Cattivelli & Rusciano, 2020;Sukhwani et al, 2020;Zimmerer & de Haan, 2020) implemented by farmers to deal with various restrictions imposed by the government.…”

“…Several studies conducted in various countries stressed that family-based subsistence farming systems provided for better results comparing to market-based commercial framing systems during covid-19 pandemics (Bisht et al, 2020;Boughton et al, 2020;Cattivelli & Rusciano, 2020;Zimmerer & de Haan 2020).…”

Is the Global Food Supply Chain during the COVID-19 Pandemic Resilient? <br/>A Review Paper

“…Since one-third of the world's population is on lockdown, global food security warnings have emerged. The outbreak has aggravated boundless food uncertainty worldwide and threatens to create long-term malnutrition and bad health consequences (Zimmerer and de Haan, 2020). At the community level, the availability and access to food have worsened due to difficulties in transportation, distribution, and delivery.…”