Towards Territorially Embedded, Equitable and Resilient Food Systems? Insights from Grassroots Responses to COVID-19 in Italy and the City Region of Rome

Simona Zollet,Simona Tarra,Davide Marino,Steven R Mcgreevy,Paola De Meo,Luca Colombo,Nora Mckeon

doi:10.3390/su13052425

Abstract

The negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed and exacerbated the structural weaknesses and inequalities embedded in the global industrial agri-food system. While the mainstream narrative continues to emphasise the importance of ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of global supply chains to counter COVID-related disruptions, the pandemic has also highlighted the resilience of small-scale, sustainable family farming and of spatially and socially embedded food systems. Based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of three surveys, this study examines organic and agroecological farmers’ responses to the first COVID-related lockdown (March–May 2020) in Italy, as well as the responses of grassroots alternative food networks (AFN) in the city region of Rome. The results show how local grassroots action played a significant role in ensuring food access, provisioning, and distribution, often in the face of delayed or insufficient action of mainstream food system actors and institutions. These grassroots responses identify opportunities and barriers for agri-food system transformation away from neoliberal, market-based interventions and towards policies that support food sovereignty and democracy in the context of localised, agroecology-based and more resilient agri-food systems.

Highlights

Over the last decades, the negative environmental impacts of conventional agri-food systems have become increasingly apparent, especially concerning biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation [1,2]
The third study used in this paper focused on the metropolitan area of Rome and aimed to explore the impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on the city’s food system and its dynamics, with a focus on food security
It has attracted mainstream attention to the need for agri-food systems grounded in principles of resilience, sustainability, agency, solidarity and fairness, which we exemplified through three case studies

Summary

Introduction

The negative environmental impacts of conventional agri-food systems have become increasingly apparent, especially concerning biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation [1,2]. The global food system is one of the major drivers of climate change, being among the largest contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions [3,4,5]. Industrial agri-food systems are characterised by limited resilience, making them vulnerable to growing climate unpredictability [4] and socio-economic shocks, such as the 2007–2008 global financial crisis and the current COVID-19 pandemic [6,7]. In addition to its environmental shortcomings, the current food system is proving unable to address the persistence and increase in food insecurity and malnutrition. Healthy diets based on unprocessed and fresh produce, for example, are not accessible for almost three billion people in the world [8].

Methods

Results

Conclusion