COVID-19: Lessons for resilience building along agricultural value chains
Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)
Time: Monday, 18. January 2021, 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. (CET), subsequent deep dive 4:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Languages: English, German
Summary:
The expert panel ‘COVID-19: Lessons for resilience building along agricultural value chains’ highlighted different perspectives of the impact of COVID-19, ranging from the global and European level to local impacts. To this end, the discussion focussed on potential paths for managing future pandemics and improving food security in crisis situations.
Although the global food system had proved to be relatively resilient compared to other industries, trade restrictions and border closures, limited labour mobility and falling consumption as a result of shutdowns, for example in the catering sector, led to price increases and bottlenecks in local food security. The impacts must also be considered in a differentiated manner depending on the target dimension of resilience – growth, trade, hunger reduction – and taking into account the specific region, commodity and even gender.
At the same time, global and international cooperation and coordination is vital for crisis management. In this context, the lessons learned from previous crisis situations, such as the Ebola epidemic and the 2008-2009 price crisis and existing tools of different EU policy areas can be helpful. These should, however, be used more consistently in order to avoid conflicting effects.