This food crisis is different: COVID-19 and the fragility of the neoliberal food security order

ABSTRACT

Our analysis situates the current COVID-19 induced food crisis within a longer-term historical perspective on policy responses to past food crises. We argue that the legacies left by these past policies created vulnerabilities in the face of the present crisis, which is characterized by three interlocking dynamics: disruptions to global food supply chains, the loss of income and livelihoods due to the global economic recession, and uneven food price trends unleashed by a set of complex factors. We make the case that the COVID-19 pandemic marks an inflection point and demands a different set of policy responses that work toward fundamentally transforming food systems.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• food crises
• food insecurity
• food policy
• food systems

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Taarini Chopra for editorial and graphic design assistance, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. We also wish to acknowledge that some of our thinking has been informed by broad ranging conversations with fellow members of the UN High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Moseley discussions with six farmers in southern Mali, August 2020.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Clapp

Jennifer Clapp is a Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability and Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. She has published widely on the global governance of problems that arise at the intersection of the global economy, food security and food systems, and the natural environment. Her most recent books include Food, 3rd Edition (2020), Speculative Harvests: Financialization, Food, and Agriculture (2018), and Hunger in the Balance: The New Politics of International Food Aid (2012). She is a member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the UN Committee on World Food Security.

William G. Moseley

William G. Moseley is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography, and the Director of the Program for Food, Agriculture & Society, at Macalester College, Saint Paul, USA. His research interests include tropical agriculture, food security and development policy, and he has undertaken long-term fieldwork in West and Southern Africa. His most recent books include: Africa’s Green Revolution: Critical Perspectives on New Agricultural Technologies and Systems (2016); Land Reform in South Africa: An Uneven Transformation (2015); and Hanging by a Thread: Cotton, Globalization and Poverty in Africa (2008). He is a member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the UN Committee on World Food Security.