Impacts of COVID-19 on People’s Food Security:
Foundations for a more Resilient Food System
Christophe Béné, Deborah Bakker, Mónica Juliana Chavarro,
Brice Even, Jenny Melo, and Anne Sonneveld
A report commissioned by CGIAR
Executive Summary | February 2021
Background
As part of the work implemented by CGIAR on COVID-19,
the COVID-19 Research Hub Working Group 4 “Address food
systems’ fragility and build back better” was tasked with implementing a global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19
on food systems and their actors, focusing specifically on the
consequences of the pandemic for the food security and nutrition of those who have been affected by the crisis.1 This
includes the formal and informal actors of food supply chains
(from producers to street vendors) as well as consumers, in
both rural and urban environments. Building on this assessment, the task was then to draw on key principles of resilience in the context of humanitarian and food security crisis,
to identify preliminary elements of a food system resilience
research agenda.
General approach and framework
The assessment was based on a methodical mapping of the
information available worldwide, collected with electronic
search engines in four languages (English, French, Spanish
and Portuguese). Analytically, two main concepts were used
to unpack and analyze the effects of COVID-19 on people’s
food security and nutrition: the concept of food security per
se and the concept of food environment. Several dimensions
were then included in the analysis: food availability (supply);
food access (affordability and physical accessibility); food
utilization (quality and safety); stability; proximity; convenience; food waste and losses; and diversity of food items. In
addition, elements of people’s wellbeing were considered,
including agency and self-efficacy, prevalence of domestic
violence, and increased risk of exposure to the virus.
The quality of the evidence was assessed using two standard
criteria: knowledge elaboration and quality of data, and the
1
level of analytics applied to the data was adjusted to the
quality of the information.
Coverage and limits of the evaluation
In total, more than 9,630 documents discussing the impact
of COVID-19 on the food security of the different food system actors published between January and December 2020,
were identified, using a combination of keywords specifically
chosen to address the objectives of the study. After removal
of documents with low representativity and/or low reliability
(mainly news media and personal social media reports), we
were left with 337 documents covering 62 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and the Americas.
Several limitations of the analysis should be mentioned. First,
although attention was paid to ensuring the comprehensiveness of the identification process, it is difficult to achieve a
perfectly exhaustive review. Consequently, some documents
that would have been useful for the analysis might have been
missed. Second, the majority of the 337 documents reviewed
were material posted or published during the phase of the
pandemic when it was difficult for researchers to operate in
the field and to obtain direct primary data. As a consequence,
the information made available through those documents is
in large part anecdotal or based on experiential knowledge.
Even when more reliable and representative protocols were
applied, the nature of the surveys used to generate data
(telephone interviews) has led to a bias toward tangible, easily or quickly ‘measurable’ or quantifiable data/indicators to
the detriment of more nuanced or qualitative data. Third, the
analytical framework used for this study focuses essentially
on food system actors and their direct (food) environment — a
methodological choice induced by the primary objective of
assessing the impact of COVID-19 on these actors’ food security and nutrition. As a consequence, the main entry point
The full report is available ar https://ebrary.ifpri.org/digital/collection/p15738coll2/id/134295
Impacts of COVID-19 on People’s Food Security: Foundations for a More Resilient Food System
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The different elements that were considered in assessing the impact of COVID-19 on people’s food security in the wider
context of food system.
Food system
Macro-economy
• change in GDP
• change in poverty
Food Security
• Stability
Food Environment
• Availability (supply)
• Affordability (economic responsibility)
• Access (physical accessibility)
• Proximity
• Quality & safety (utilization)
• Convenience
• Diversity of food items
• Waste and losses
• Agency and self-efficacy
Foot Print
• Domestic violence and unrest
• Risk of contagion
Health & Wellbeing
for the analysis is the individual (actor, enterprise) level. This
means that elements and processes important to consider in
relation to the dynamics and/or the resilience of food systems
but taking place at higher levels (e.g., drivers of food systems,
institutional actors’ political agendas and priorities, local and
national policies) have not been thoroughly explored.
Initial key findings
The review confirms what other analyses have also highlighted, namely, the magnitude and the severity of an unprecedented crisis that has spread worldwide and has spared only
a few. But the review also reveals some other important elements. First it highlights that despite the attention that this
global crisis received so far from the scientific community, we
still have a relatively poor understanding (both quantitatively
and qualitatively) of the actual impact of the pandemic on
people’s food security and nutrition. This state of incomplete
knowledge can be explained by the relatively short period of
time since the pandemic began (meaning that only a small
number of peer-reviewed, rigorous, research articles had
been published by the time this review was conducted), and
by the fact that research on the ground was severely constrained by the succession of lockdowns and mobility restrictions that have been imposed around the world.
Using the information available, the analysis reveals that
the dimension of food security that has been most affected
is accessibility, with reasonably solid evidence suggesting
that both financial and physical access to food have been
disrupted, in particular in urban areas and in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In contrast, there is no clear evidence that the availability of food has been affected beyond
some initial disruptions due to panic buying; and there is not
enough information to provide robust conclusions about the
effects of the pandemic on the utilization of food (safety or
quality). We note that those various disruptions in access (or
even temporarily in availability) can be re-interpreted as disturbances in the stability dimension of the concept of food
security, justifying the use of the concept of resilience in the
second part of the report. Finally, the impact of COVID-19
on the nutritional status of people (so far conceptualized essentially as a consequence of the disruption in the economic
accessibility to food on children), is still poorly documented
but expected to be substantial in the long run. Beyond these
direct effects, anecdotal accounts of degradation in people’s
wellbeing were also found (especially in relation to domestic
violence as well as voluntary or involuntary exposure to the
virus), but the absence of detailed analyses in the documents
available at the time of completing this review prevents more
robust conclusions.
COVID-19 impact pathways
The impact pathway analysis (see figure below on p.4) that
was built on these initial findings provides additional insights.
Of particular importance is the observation that contrary to
what had been concluded in several other documents, the
disruption in access to food due to people’s loss of employment or reduction in income/revenues was not limited to its
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Impacts of COVID-19 on People’s Food Security: Foundations for a More Resilient Food System
Geographical coverage of the Review (i.e. countries discussed or mentioned in the documents included in this review).
Number of documents
5 10 15 20
financial component (affordability). Another important pathway that contributed to this outcome relates to the disruption
in physical access to food outlets in urban context, especially
during the time of complete lockdowns. This disruption in
physical access was then shown to affect proximity and convenience, which, combined with the reduction in affordability
induced by the decrease in people’s incomes, eventually led
to a degradation in food choice and diversity.
Major conclusions
Serious concerns had been initially expressed about the
severe disruptions that the successive waves of lockdowns
have induced for the food system actors and, more generally, in people’s livelihoods and local and global economies.
The fears were that these disruptions may lead to local — or
even global — food shortages. The evidence suggests that
those fears — albeit justified — did not materialize. Overall,
food systems ‘resisted’ the shock and no major episodes of
severe food shortage were observed. This resilience of the
food systems came, however, at great cost, with the majority
of the systems’ actors having to cope with severe disruptions
in their activities. At the same time, a group of actors was able
to take advantage of the crisis; those are the grocery stores
and supermarkets which made billions of dollars in profits in
2020, thus raising questions about the best way that part of
these profits could be redistributed or used to cover some
the costs that the crisis inflicted.
Overall, although the (short-term) capacity of food system actors to resist, adapt and innovate in the face of the economic challenges imposed by the lockdowns led some experts
to emphasize the intrinsic resilience of the system, it should
also be kept in mind that a large part of that resilience resulted simply from the special status of the larger actors as ‘essential services,’ which allowed them to continue operating
while many other economic sectors had to shut down. This
apparent resilience was also built at the cost of hundreds of
thousands of smaller or informal food system actors who disappeared during the crisis.
The longer-term implications of the COVID-19 crisis for the
dynamics and performance of the local and global food systems are difficult to predict.
Preliminary elements of a food system resilience
research agenda
The various findings synthesized above have implications for
both policy and research. Several lessons and propositions
are distilled throughout the report and are synthesized below.
First, the review reveals important gaps in our knowledge
about resilience in relation to food systems. Several factors
explain this situation, including the recognition that the concept of resilience is still very often used in a rhetorical manner
Impacts of COVID-19 on People’s Food Security: Foundations for a More Resilient Food System
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
in food system policies and very theoretically in the academic
communities, where it is discussed essentially in the context
of high-income countries. As such, these academic pieces
are of limited use to guide research on the resilience of food
systems and their actors in LMICs and very little is currently
known about the different elements that would be necessary to strengthen the resilience of both the actors and the
systems in the context of those LMICs. This analysis lays out
some initial elements of a research agenda in that direction.
Identifying actors’ and value chains’ vulnerabilities
An initial task in building policy-relevant science on food system resilience in LMICs will be to improve our knowledge and
understanding of the actors that operate in those systems.
At the present time, very little is known (especially among
CGIAR researchers) about the ‘missing (or hidden) middle’ —
that part of the food system located between production (the
farmers) and consumption (nutrition), the two areas where
CGIAR has directed most of its research effort to date. It is
critical that more attention be paid to the formal and informal
actors that make up the rest of the system, and to the factors
that make these actors more (or less) vulnerable to disruptions and shocks. Mapping the different sources of vulnera-
bility that affect particular actors (e.g., processors, retailers,
street vendors), commodities (e.g., fruits, vegetables), markets (open, closed), or value chains (e.g., small livestock) in
low-income countries should be a priority. For this, comparative analyses built on common frameworks should be conducted in which criteria such as seasonality, supply spikes,
perishability, or exposure to extreme weather events could
be used to identify, assess, and compare the level of vulnerability of actors operating in different commodities and value
chains. It is informative to notice that no systematic comparative analysis has been proposed across the CGIAR system to
compare different value chains in relation to their respective
exposure and vulnerability to COVID-19. Rather, most of the
documents reviewed were single-commodity focused (often
in direct line with the institutional interest of the Center with
which the authors were affiliated). Even those that discussed
several commodities presented them separately.
These comparative frameworks should not stop, however, at
the technical aspects (shelf life, perishability, storage, foodborne disease risks, etc.) of the commodity itself. Ineffective
rule of law, economic or political marginalization of particular
groups, gender inequity, price changes, “invisibility” of the
informal sector, and other factors are all existing sources of
Impact pathways of COVID-19 on food systems and their different actors.
Direct effects of COVID or
directly-related responses
by authorities
Immediate consequences
on food system actors
Subsequent repurcussions on
food system actors and/or other
(non-food systems) actors
Final impacts on consumers’ food
security dimensions and/or food
system actors’ health & well being.
Impacts of COVID-19 on People’s Food Security: Foundations for a More Resilient Food System
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
vulnerability that will need to be better understood if we want
to be in a position to strengthen the resilience of the food
system actors in LMICs.
Understanding actors’ responses to shocks
One of the key principles in resilience analysis is that the final outcome of a situation where an individual, household,
enterprise, sector, or the whole system is hit by a shock does
not depend merely on the direct impact of the shock, but on
the combination of that shock with the responses that the
different actors (as individuals or as groups) put in place to
mitigate or counteract its initial effects. The distressing experience of the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems perfectly illustrates this point: the current threat to the food security and wellbeing of millions of people worldwide does
not derive from the effect of the virus itself (the initial shock),
but from the disruptions in food deliveries, market linkages,
economic activities, and household incomes and revenues
induced by the successive waves of mobility restrictions and
lockdowns that have been put in place by national or local
governments in an attempt to mitigate the initial health impact of the pandemic.
Beyond its direct informative value, this observation has important implications from a resilience research perspective.
It means that documenting and understanding more thoroughly the types of responses put in place by different actors
in the wake of an adverse event (flood, political collapse, zoonotic epidemic, etc.) is a second essential step (after understanding their vulnerability) toward building more resilient
food systems in the future: without a good understanding of
actors’ motives and behavior and the way they respond to
shocks, it is impossible to anticipate their reactions and put in
place interventions and policies that can mitigate the negative effects of some of the detrimental responses.
Understand better resilience capacity
It is now well established that a useful way to conceptualize
resilience is to conceive of it as an emerging property result-
The CGIAR COVID-19 Hub is led by the CGIAR Research
Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. To learn
more, visit www.a4nh.cgiar.org/covidhub/
John McDermott
A4NH Director
CGIAR COVID-19 Hub Co-Leader
j.mcdermott@cgiar.org
Christophe Béné, lead author
of this report
Principal Scientist, Sustainable Food
Systems; Alliance of Biodiversity
International and CIAT
c.bene@cgiar.org
ing from a combination of capacities. These capacities are
themselves built on social, human, financial, natural, physical
or mental capitals which households accumulate or develop
during non-crisis periods and can then draw on in anticipation of, or in response to, a sudden or predicted shock. While
our understanding of what resources are important for farmers to build their resilience capacities is improving rapidly,
in contrast, our understanding of the situation for midstream
actors, for whom very little data is collected, is still extremely
limited. Yet until we have a better sense of what constitute the
elements of each actor’s resilience capacity in a given food
system, it will be difficult to design appropriate interventions
to help those actors build their own capacity to respond
more positively to future shocks.
Beyond rhetoric, and beyond resilience
As mentioned earlier, statements about resilience are often
rhetorical. For instance, it is often claimed that local food systems are more resilient than global ones. No empirical evidence is available, however, to back up those statements. One
obvious implication would be to develop research to test this
hypothesis empirically. The underlying mental model, however, is one that assumes there is an ‘optimal scale’ at which resilience operates. Our view is that, instead of trying to determine
the optimal scale that allegedly makes a food system (be it
local or regional) more resilient, research should be designed
to explore and identify the conditions (type of shocks, characteristics of the food system, behavior of the actors, etc.) that
make a given food system more (or less) resilient. This type
of information would be very useful for policymakers who are
increasingly interested in investing in food system resilience at
different scales (local but also regional). However, ultimately,
the choice of the ‘right’ investment or policy should be driven,
not by resilience considerations, but by the more important
objective of making those food systems more sustainable, that
is, socially more equitable, nutritionally healthier, inclusive,
and environmentally sounder. In this agenda, resilience is the
means, not the end.
The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for
Nutrition and Health is led by IFPRI
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
A world free of hunger and malnutrition
1201 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 USA
T. +1-202-862-5600 | F. +1-202-862-5606 | ifpri@cgiar.org | www.ifpri.org
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.134295
Copyright © 2021 International Food Policy Research Institute.
All rights reserved. Contact ifpri-copyright@cgiar.org for
permission to republish.