The adventure of food from manufacturers to geographically dispersed consumers is based on chains of vast and complex sources that, if interrupted, can have an effect on food materials and plunge the global food formula into a state of crisis.
COVID-19 labor shortages, logistical disruptions and source and demand inconsistencies have had a significant effect on production, distribution and inventory levels throughout the food system, resulting in empty supermarket shelves, food waste, processing plant closures, export brakes and increased global food insecurity.
The risk of global food formula crises can be mitigated by strong local food formulas with transparent source chains that empower communities and local food security.
The World Economic Forum informed countries and consumers of the “post-COVID need” to help “local food systems with shorter, fairer and cleaner source chains that meet local priorities” and the University of Cambridge referred to coVID having an effect on local food. systems such as “a new bankruptcy in global food security.”
A survey through Ipsos Mori and the UK Food Standards Agency found that 35 percent of consumers are buying more local food than before the crisis.
Here are five reasons why local food projects, such as urban agriculture, shared network gardens, victory gardens, local advertising production, farmers markets, field-to-plate food and network-backed farms, are the future.
Local food provides social services to communities
“Product chains hide the relationships we have,” Vincent J. Miller, professor of theology at the University of Dayton, said in a recent interview with America Magazine. “Deprived of this knowledge, it is difficult to expand an ethical fear for the other people who manage the lines of origin.” Local intake is helping to foster visitor loyalty and vital human relationships within communities, which is vital in times of crisis.
Local food is for local economies
Redundancies, closures and mobility restrictions have severely affected local economies. With livelihood relief, COVID-19 food shortages and “the transition to the local,” rural entrepreneurship has increased. Around the world, farmers have taken control of their own distribution, providing food boxes with everything that is seasonal. With communities that source food from local farmers, cash remains in the community, helping local manufacturers and their families.
Locally sourced foods are collected at the optimal level of adulthood and fed soon after, making them fresher and more nutritious with more potent immune stimulation properties.
A 2008 study published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition found that imported broccoli is part of locally sourced vitamin C of broccoli. According to the Rodale Institute, “most non-local products are collected before they are fully mature so they can embark on the adventure to the supermarket. This may be perfect for the business, but when a plant is allowed to remain on the vine and mature absolutely before being harvested, its nutrient content is higher.
Food with fewer contact problems with the source chain also has a much lower threat of contamination. Transparency in the source chain provides a greater sense of security for consumers.
Local foods are more resistant to chain outages.
The density and complexity of larger and geographically dispersed food systems make them more likely to cause chain disruptions.
Transport problems, for example, can cause primary disruptions to food materials that have to travel many miles or more to succeed consumers. The same applies to interruptions at processing plants, packaging plants and distribution centers.
Local food manufacturers are not so dependent on labor, transportation, packaging or distribution. The ease of the source of production creates greater resilience and food security.
Local food is for the environment
Whether it is packaging, processing, transport or distribution, the duration of the food adventure between production and intake has an environmental effect on each and every level of the source chain. Shorter distances between manufacturers and consumers are related to lower carbon emissions and less waste. Local production also creates greater obligations among manufacturers, meaning they are more likely to interact in environmentally friendly practices.
Prior to COVID-19, food security issues were largely fear of emerging countries and small island states. These are now the fear of all countries, rich and deficient alike.
While the global food formula supplies the world’s population with greater and more variety, improves lifestyles, creates economic opportunities, and contributes to the food security of small nations, local food security strengthens local and global food formulas and unlike food formulas that are governed through “Big Food, “there are no winners or losers , everyone wins.
Technology can play a vital role in mitigating the vulnerability of local food systems (vulnerability to climate change, food seasonality, economies of scale limited and fewer markets) by connecting consumers with producers, creating more effective and equitable markets, production power, and climate. Resistance. Local agri-food and artisanal industries can create more markets for locally grown food, while regional and intraregional food systems would likely face some of the dangers and constraints associated with dependence on local foodstuffs.
While consumers might not soon see photographs of overcrowded meat processing plants, farmers destroying crops due to chain-of-origin disruptions or coVID’s main dangers to others with poor nutrition-affected noncommunicable diseases, the truth is that the world’s food formula sector is not going anywhere soon.
With this in mind, local food production is more than ever. The local food source reduces the risk of disturbances in the source chain while offering a wealth of social, economic, nutritional and environmental benefits to consumers, manufacturers and their communities.
I am an environmental publisher specializing in food and agriculture and I am between the South Caribbean (Barbados) and the North Caribbean (Cayman Islands). I have a master’s degree in foreign economic policy from Columbia University and am passionate about the social, economic and environmental problems of the Caribbean. I am intrigued by the resilience of the region’s new island states and the opportunities for sustainable and regenerative expansion through agriculture. I recently directed communications for a fisheries climate replacement assignment (CC4FISH) at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and worked in progressive banks, non-profit environmental organizations and the venture capital industry. My paintings have been published in a wide variety of Caribbean newspapers and magazines, the Sunday Times (London), Elite Daily, Elephant Journal and other publications. Follow me on Twitter on @daphneewingchow, on Facebook on @daphneewingchowpublisher or linkedin @daphneewingchow