As part of the work implemented by CGIAR on COVID-19, the COVID-19 Research Hub Working Group 4 “Address food systems’ fragility and build back better” was tasked with implementing a global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems and their actors, focusing specifically on the consequences that the pandemic had brought on the food security and nutrition of those who have been affected by the crisis. This includes formal and informal actors of the food supply chains (from producers to street vendors) as well as consumers, in both rural and urban environments. Building on this assessment, the task was then to draw on key principles of resilience in the context of humanitarian and food security crisis, to identify preliminary elements of a food system resilience research agenda.

As part of the work implemented by CGIAR on COVID-19, the COVID-19 Research Hub Working Group 4 “Address food systems’ fragility and build back better” was tasked with implementing a global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems and their actors, focusing specifically on the consequences that the pandemic had brought on the food security and nutrition of those who have been affected by the crisis. This includes formal and informal actors of the food supply chains (from producers to street vendors) as well as consumers, in both rural and urban environments. Building on this assessment, the task was then to draw on key principles of resilience in the context of humanitarian and food security crisis, to identify preliminary elements of a food system resilience research agenda.

Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health, economic, and social disruptions caused by this global crisis continue to evolve. The impacts of the pandemic are likely to endure for years to come, with poor, marginalized, and vulnerable groups the most affected. In COVID-19 & Global Food Security: Two Years Later, the editors bring together contributions from new IFPRI research, blogs, and the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub to examine the pandemic’s effects on poverty, food security, nutrition, and health around the world. This volume presents key lessons learned on food security and food system resilience in 2020 and 2021 and assesses the effectiveness of policy responses to the crisis. Looking forward, the authors consider how the pandemic experience can inform both recovery and longer-term efforts to build more resilient food systems.

This open access book compiles a series of chapters written by internationally recognized experts known for their in-depth but critical views on questions of resilience and food security. The book assesses rigorously and critically the contribution of the concept of resilience in advancing our understanding and ability to design and implement development interventions in relation to food security and humanitarian crises. For this, the book departs from the narrow beaten tracks of agriculture and trade, which have influenced the mainstream debate on food security for nearly 60 years, and adopts instead a wider, more holistic perspective, framed around food systems. The foundation for this new approach is the recognition that in the current post-globalization era, the food and nutritional security of the world’s population no longer depends just on the performance of agriculture and policies on trade, but rather on the capacity of the entire (food) system to produce, process, transport and distribute safe, affordable and nutritious food for all, in ways that remain environmentally sustainable. In that context, adopting a food system perspective provides a more appropriate frame as it incites to broaden the conventional thinking and to acknowledge the systemic nature of the different processes and actors involved. This book is written for a large audience, from academics to policymakers, students to practitioners. This is an open access book.

Understanding the capacity of food systems to undertake a transformation towards sustainability requires understanding how resources stream in and out of the systems. As complex socio-economic structures, food and agricultural value chains are important means for channeling resources, knowledge, and agency in and out of rural areas. Given their prominent role on the development agendas, there is mixed evidence as to what extent value chains and their actors can contribute to improving the livelihoods in poor rural and urban areas. In order to shape sustainable living places, transformative capacities and good governance are important mainstays. Transformative agri-food value chains are robust and often act as the sole transmission belt for returning capital, resources and identity back into vulnerable areas. Moreover, domestic or regional chains may provide urban consumers with fresh quality food that also contributes to regional identity.

Agrifood systems in the Near East and North Africa are characterized by increasingly degraded natural resources and vulnerability to climate change, rapid population growth and protracted crises. In addition, the region has been affected by conflict that has further exposed the fragilities and worsened the challenges already faced by communities. Conflict negatively affects the poverty rate, the economic capacity and functioning of agrifood value chains and people’s ability to produce, distribute and access food. In volatile operating environments, resources, government spending and private investment are frequently diverted or reduced, with lasting impact on agri-food value chains and consequently nutrition and food security. Uncertainties inherent to these contexts can further undermine the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of agri-food value chain development interventions, programmes and projects.Investigating the connection between sustainable, resilient agrifood value chain development and the unique characteristics of the highly volatile situations in which they are operating, these practitioner guidelines propose a four-step approach for selection, analysis and design of agrifood value chains in conflict prone and conflict affected contexts. The approach aims to strengthen the resilience of agri-food value chains through systems-based solutions, adopting a context-sensitive programming approach and ensuring an adaptive programming effort through a Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) framework, to facilitate testing and scaling-up.

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the greatest and most challenging crises the world has faced in recent decades. This volume provides a collection of awarded and short-listed essays on the pandemic’s impacts on food business education and food value chains. The essays were written by students and graduates of the Master of Science programme in International Food Business and Consumer Studies (IFBC). Each essay provides unique reflections on how students and food professionals have been affected in terms of their education, business or jobs and personal life.

The coronavirus pandemic has upended local, national, and global food systems, and put the Sustainable Development Goals further out of reach. But lessons from the world’s response to the pandemic can help address future shocks and contribute to food system change. In the 2021 Global Food Policy Report, IFPRI researchers and other food policy experts explore the impacts of the pandemic and government policy responses, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged, and consider what this means for transforming our food systems to be healthy, resilient, efficient, sustainable, and inclusive. Chapters in the report look at balancing health and economic policies, promoting healthy diets and nutrition, strengthening social protection policies and inclusion, integrating natural resource protection into food sector policies, and enhancing the contribution of the private sector. Regional sections look at the diverse experiences around the world, and a special section on finance looks at innovative ways of funding food system transformation. Critical questions addressed include: - Who felt the greatest impact from falling incomes and food system disruptions caused by the pandemic? - How can countries find an effective balance among health, economic, and social policies in the face of crisis? - How did lockdowns affect diet quality and quantity in rural and urban areas? - Do national social protection systems such as cash transfers have the capacity to protect poor and vulnerable groups in a global crisis? - Can better integration of agricultural and ecosystem polices help prevent the next pandemic? - How did companies accelerate ongoing trends in digitalization and integration to keep food supply chains moving? - What different challenges did the pandemic spark in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and how did these regions respond?

There is growing evidence that the current globalised agri-food system is neither sustainable nor resilient. It is responsible for around one third of the global GHG emissions and is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Furthermore, its structure and distribution mode do not provide food security for all and foster socio-economic inequalities between different parts of the planet. Consequently, an increasing number of scientists and members of the civil society are demanding a radical transformation of agri-food systems. The creation of alternative food networks (AFNs) represent a possible first step towards agri-food system transformation. AFNs can incorporate local, indigenous and innovative knowledge and bring together a diversity of actors to connect food production and consumption and create new practices and relationships around food. The creation of AFNs, and ultimately of Alternative Food Systems (AFS), should involve different actors, from farmers to social movements, from policymakers to scientists. AFNs have the potential to contribute to a transformation towards sustainable, just, resilient and productive food systems, but even though they have increased in numbers and organisational forms in recent years, they still remain in a niche. Consequently, scientific evidence of their performance is still limited. This research topic will contribute to a comprehensive, multi-scalar and critical (e.g. including potential counter-effects) understanding of the current state and future potential of AFNs. It will address multiple aspects, ranging from social, economic and environmental aspects to productivity, participation and justice. Moreover, it will highlight the role of governance, power relations and institutions, as well as barriers and ways forward to promote AFNs and their role in food system transformation.