Food security and COVID-19

On Thursday September 17, 2020, the Food security and COVID-19 Community of Practice (CoP) on Digital Solutions hosted the webinar “Providing Liquidity in Agri Value Chains with Digital Solutions”. This is the last webinar in a series of three focusing on “Digital opportunities in the response to COVID-19 in Asian & Africa agriculture”. »

On Thursday August 27, 2020, the Food security and COVID-19 Community of Practice (CoP) on Digital Solutions hosted the webinar “Digital solutions for smallholder farmers: the challenges and opportunities of COVID-19”. This is the second webinar in a series of three focusing on “Digital opportunities in the response to COVID-19 in Asian & Africa agriculture”. »

On Thursday July 30, 2020, the Food security and COVID-19 Community of Practice (CoP) on Digital Solutions hosted the webinar ”How do African entrepreneurs in agriculture use digital technology to respond to Covid-19”. This is the first webinar in a series of three focusing on “Digital opportunities in the response to COVID-19 in Asian & Africa agriculture”. »

On July 9, 2020, the third meeting of the Food security and COVID-19 CoP on Finance & Outreach took place online, organized by convener NpM. The meeting focused on several updates of participating organizations’ ongoing activities and a presentation of the draft of a Term Sheet for an emergency fund. »

Wageningen University & Research and partners identify major food systems challenges that emerge as COVID-19 measures take hold and affect food security. Country assessments, unique in their syntheses of grounded in-country data and outcomes validated by country expert panels, reveal deep immediate impacts in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mali. »

On June 24, 2020, the second call of the CoP Markets, Supply Chains and Nutritious foods took place online. The CoP is convened by GAIN and co-convened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Netherlands Food Partnership. The call focused on a country mapping identifying the sectors and value chains in which CoP participants are active for the selected priority countries Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Bangladesh. »

On June 22, 2020, the second meeting of the CoP on Digital Solutions was convened by 2SCALE to discuss a proposal for an action perspective of this CoP was discussed. In preparation, a mapping was carried out to inventory the activities of organizations in the realm of digital technologies in food security programming. As an intermediate step the organization a webinars series was proposed to kick start this CoP with a practical perspective. »

On June 5, 2020, the second online meeting of the Food security and COVID-19 CoP on Finance & Outreach was organized. Participating organizations were: convener NpM, ICCO, Solidaridad, 2SCALE, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), SNV, One Acre Fund, and OikoCredit. Representatives from the IGG department – acting as co-convener – and the DDE department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were present as well; the CoP is supported by the Netherlands Food Partnership. »

In this report, Pepijn Schreinemachers from the World Vegetable Center, and Kanokwan Chodchoey, Steven Layne and Weeranuch Mhadlhoo from the Asia & Pacific Seed Association (APSA) give the results of a second survey among seed enterprise members of the APSA. This second survey showed that seed companies continue to report the same difficulties, but that there are clear improvements in nearly all aspects.  »

Dutch development organizations are working together to help prevent the emergence of food crises in LMICs as a consequence of COVID-19 measures and impacts. On the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands Food Partnership and GAIN, several CoPs have been formed to support these efforts. The CoPs facilitate cooperation and support around areas that are deemed particularly essential for an effective response to the COVID-19 crisis: Markets, Supply Chains & Nutritious foods; Finance & Outreach; Digital Solutions, and Knowledge. »

On June 1, 2020, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the Johns Hopkins Alliance for a Healthier World launched the Food Systems Dashboard. This new online dashboard presents food system data of 230 countries and is designed to better inform policy. »

Stakeholders in seed and other agricultural sectors are facing critical challenges to their normal activities. Without fast and informed action, the COVID-19 crisis risks becoming a global food crisis. Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and partners are collaborating to identify priority steps for enhancing food systems’ resilience in low and middle income countries. »

Following up on the first virtual round table a second meeting on the COVID-19 response was held to discuss the proposed four Communities of Practice that emerged as commonly identified focus areas in the first meeting. The goal of this meeting was to make these CoPs concrete, discuss how they are organized and what steps they can start taking. »

On April 15, a first virtual round table was convened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department Inclusive Green Growth (MinFA-IGG) and the Netherlands Food Partnership (NFP) for bilaterally funded programmes to see what is possible to support local farmers, nutrition programmes and partners with existing means. »

As a result of a parliamentary debate on April 16, 2020, the Dutch government has asked the Advisory Council on International Affairs to urgently draw recommendations on the role of the Netherlands in combating and mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in developing countries. Members of the AgriProFocus Food Security Policy Coalition, including HIVOS, »

Understanding the vulnerabilities of local food systems is a key priority as the world is gaining more knowledge and information of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our food systems. A rapid appraisal carried out by Wageningen University and Research contributes to this emerging understanding of Covid-19 impacts, specifically on perceived Covid-19 control measures and their potential effect on local food systems. »

In this report, Pepijn Schreinemachers from the World Vegetable Center, and Kanokwan Chodchoey, Steven Layne and Weeranuch Mhadlhoo from the Asia & Pacific Seed Association (APSA) give the results of a survey, which recorded the opinion of seed company managers on how the crisis has affected their business and identified emerging bottlenecks in the seed supply chain. »

The COVID-19 pandemic has a large and decisive impact on public health, and generates major consequences for social relationships, economic development and food systems. In this note, Ivo Demmers and Ruerd Ruben focus on four food system dimensions that are most critical for outlining the (likely) impact of COVID-19 induced changes on agri-food systems’ performance, and outline the main challenges that have to be addressed during the post-COVID-19 recovery period. »

As the impact of COVID-19 is growing and affecting food systems globally, the short and long term consequences of this crisis for SDG2 are becoming increasingly visible. Countries, governments, research and aid organizations as well as businesses are all taking action to prevent food systems from breaking down, and in the process create and share a great variety of information. As a knowledge brokering organization, the F&BKP feels that one of the ways in which we can contribute to these efforts is to provide insight into key sources of information. »