Abstract
As a consequence of disasters such as pandemics and severe weather events, Australian communities often face ‘food shortages’ resulting from the reduced availability of food and reduced access to available food. These food shortages can be acutely felt by vulnerable populations, comprising people in communities who are already dealing with social or economic disadvantages. Despite growing calls to ensure food access for everyone during and following disasters, efforts are still largely ad hoc, champion based and highly variable in their reliability and quality of supply. There is also a disconnect between disaster-related food relief and improving business continuity towards local economic resilience. This study sought to tackle these challenges by exploring how ‘local food access’ could be integrated within disaster management mechanisms, to support the most vulnerable and also contribute to local economic resilience. This paper discusses the findings of a study undertaken in Cairns, a north-eastern Australian regional authority, and involves a review of disaster management planning and policy artifacts, an online survey, and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders providing care and advocacy for vulnerable populations. Synthesizing the findings, we present a disaster-management-focused ‘Local Food Access Model’ that connects shorter food supply chains to improved disaster response, resilience and contingency-planning agendas. Applying this model to Cairns, we conclude the multiple benefits and immediate stakeholder readiness for a virtual (online) food resilience and contingency hub, to enable the connection of local food availability and access information within existing disaster management processes. The research method used, the model, and the case-specific findings provide government decision makers with a useful process, a local food-access schematic and a case study example to support immediate improvements in disaster resilience for vulnerable populations.
Highlights
Increasing Experiences of Food InsecurityDespite global food availability, local and regional food insecurity has existed for centuries, reflecting geographical, geopolitical and climate-related challenges to enabling sufficient food calories for life, and for all
Following a summary of methods, we present the results of two workshops with council personnel and a survey of support-services personnel regarding the feasibility of enabling local food access for vulnerable populations
We consider the implications of these findings for other local authorities in Australia and elsewhere regarding the potential for local food access arrangements to be embedded within the disaster management processes (PPRR), to support vulnerable populations
Summary
Local and regional food insecurity has existed for centuries, reflecting geographical, geopolitical and climate-related challenges to enabling sufficient food calories for life, and for all. Global aid agencies and international foreign aid efforts have long-endeavored to provide food aid to developing countries experiencing long-term and acute challenges. Supplying food to citizens and enabling access to this food is a continued challenge [1]. In recent decades, two new contexts for food insecurity in developed countries have arisen, resulting in a substantial increase in new ‘first-time vulnerable’ recipients of food aid, including ‘wealthy’ nations [4,5]. The emerging movement towards accessing local and regional food supplies is evident in papers on the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 [6,7,8,9]
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