Growing and Eating Food during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Farmers’ Perspectives on Local Food System Resilience to Shocks in Southern Africa and Indonesia

Nicole Paganini,David Harris,Haidee Swanby,Tandu Ramba,Inês Raimundo,Enzo Nervi Aguirre,Silke Stöber,Nedim Sulejmanović,Daniel Tevera,Jennifer Koppelin,Stefanie Lemke,Kustiwa Adinata,Abdulrazak Karriem,Fezile Ncube,Nomonde Buthelezi,Alberto Luis

doi:10.3390/su12208556

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak forced governments to make decisions that had adverse effects on local food systems and supply chains. As a result, many small-scale food producers faced difficulties growing, harvesting, and selling their goods. This participatory research examines local small-scale farmers’ challenges as farmers but also as consumers and their coping strategies during the month of April and one week in June 2020. The study was initiated and conceptualized in collaboration with small-scale farmer members of an existing research network in selected urban and rural areas in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia. Participants co-designed the research, collected and uploaded data through digital survey tools, and contributed to data analysis and interpretation. A common observation across regions is that the measures imposed in response to COVID-19 highlighted and partly exacerbated existing socio-economic inequalities among food system actors. Strict lockdowns in Cape Town, South Africa, and Masvingo, Zimbabwe, significantly restricted the production capacity of small-scale farmers in the informal economy and created more food insecurity for them. In Maputo, Mozambique, and Toraja and Java, Indonesia, local food systems continued to operate and were even strengthened by higher social capital and adaptive capacities.

Highlights

Worldwide, most food is produced by small-scale farmers, yet these farmers face hunger and vulnerability to food insecurity [1]
The challenges farmers experienced in their farming and marketing activities as a result of COVID-19 preventative measures are described
The COVID-19 crisis has shown that it is small-scale farmers who need to increase their adaptive capacity to improve resilience; decision-makers need to ensure that those who provide small-scale solutions, in particular women farmers, are an integral part of food systems and have the capacity to improve their resilience to shocks, especially when an enabling environment is lacking

Summary

Introduction

Most food is produced by small-scale farmers (we use the term “small-scale farmer” and “farmer” interchangeably throughout the document), yet these farmers face hunger and vulnerability to food insecurity [1]. Béné (2020) argues that the virus itself does not pose as much of a threat to the lives of billions as do its negative consequences on food system resilience, which is understood as the ability of households and communities to cope with shocks without having a long-term negative impact on wellbeing and functioning of these food systems [6] Organizations such as the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES) and the Transnational Institute as well as international scholars argue the pandemic opened opportunities for transforming current exclusionary food systems to meet societal needs [7,9,10,11,12].

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Discussion

Conclusion