Short food supply chains to resolve food scarcity during COVID-19 pandemic—An Indian model

Abstract

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 across the globe, there has been serious disruptions in food supply chains leading to poverty, hunger and food insecurity. There is also a more serious problem associated with transportation of goods across the borders due to serious lockdown imposed across the globe to combat COVID-19. There are several drawbacks in the existing food supply chains such as integrated food processing sectors and bulk production of agricultural commodities. The outbreak of COVID-19 necessitated a more balanced approach ensuring the food security of a nation during such crisis. This condition is also observed in various agrarian developing nations during COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to globalization and urbanization, short food supply chains (SFSC) and decentralized food processing (DFP) played a critical role in food supply across the globe. Till date, SFSC and DFP plays a pivotal role in combating food security and providing rural employment among people of developing countries. Integrating the advantages of SFSC in integrated food processing sectors could be a suitable solution to meet the food demands of a country during pandemic outbreak. This will also open up new opportunities for building a more resilient food supply chain for future generations. Under such conditions, there comes a need to look into more traditional and simple solutions for tackling food transportation issues. In this article, relevance of SFSC and DFP has been critically analyzed from an Indian perspective. The Indian scenario can be extrapolated for all the developing countries where the agrarian population is huge.