The Global Pandemic and Lockdown Effects.
Every community worldwide has been greatly affected by COVID-19. This global pandemic resulted in a fall in the economy which leads to a decline in livelihoods, food security, employment rate, health services, and trading systems. With the government’s restrictions, precautions and measures on commuting, social distance, sanitation, and mask-up, a terrible fear smashed citizens, ending up affecting their mental health, consumption patterns, nutrition status, working efficiency, purchasing power and socialization behaviour. The innovation of COVID-19 vaccines brings hope and slows down the pandemic while saving lives, and securing a global economic recovery (WHO, 2022).
Food insecurity and the supply chain
Examining the four pillars of food security, COVID-19 brought food insecurity to families all around the world regardless of how much the family spent on food, although low-income and disadvantaged families experienced a serious problem (Sah et al., 2021). As reported by (Aday and Aday, 2020) during the COVID-19 pandemic, the food supply chain was largely affected by production, processing, distribution, and on the demand side due to elevated levels of restrictions, changes in consumer demand, closure of food premises, markets and the financial pressures. This predicament leads to a rise of delivery services at one’s door, although customers were and still are worried about risks of being infected by COVID-19 from the service providers, with a dilemma on food handling and the general sanitation practices of the food premises (Kumar, 2020).
Although the online business of ordering groceries took a great pick, suppliers could not meet the demand. Also, delivery services did not offer all varieties as per consumers’ choices, thus elevated consumption of comfort foods including sweets, sugary drinks, meat, cereals, alcohol, and fried and processed foods took a lead (Bennett et al., 2021). This consumption behaviour resulted in a rise of the obesogenic environment due to much consumption of junk foods delivered at a cheap price at a convenient time.
With this global tragedy, a need of making food locally available is a point to consider, as failure to obtain food in a normal routine increases the chances of methane emissions caused by food waste and loss, and an increase in plastic use for packaging and storage. According to (Bord Bia, 2007) a universal definition of local food is not exist but in general, a local product is sourced within a 40-50km (25-30 mile) radius of where it is sold.
The availability of local foods such as vegetables, fruits, cereals, fish, chicken, and eggs will create choices for consumers and change their purchasing and consumption behaviour. Factors such as quality (i.e. organic produce), flavour, freshness, and ingredients are the basic requirements that a customer considers while making a food choice. With COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions, the existing farmers’ open markets could cater to consumers’ needs and choices and give people in a locality a chance to meet and interact with each other while taking precautions.
Where We Were and Where We Are-Sustainable market opportunity
From the fearful living environment back in the days to people of all nations, sex, and age, COVID-19 is now turning to be part and parcel of our daily life. Regardless of other precautions and measures, people can now commute and visit markets, shops and other important places. In the food supply chain food waste and loss, and food shortage were highly observed due to elevated quarantine restrictions, closure of food premises and markets, high level of unemployment, and changes in spending behaviour and consumption patterns (Ellison and Kalaitzandonakes, 2020).
From this lesson, there is a need for scaling, and improving Farmers’ Open Markets as it is a sustainable and environmentally friendly approach that will create more jobs, access to a variety of fresh and quality produce, minimum food waste and less use of plastics for packaging. As reported by (Colombia Climate School, 2022) purchasing local/organic and seasonal foods from farmers’ open markets will help to replace part of our calories from red meat and dairy products by consuming more vegetables, fish, eggs and chicken which have less GHG emissions.
Decentralized farmers’ open markets will facilitate the availability of safe and nutritious food as farmers adopt environmental-friendly practices such as less use of pesticides and fertilizers, and the use of cover crops while minimizing food safety risks happening during long-distance transportation. Also being an open space, there will be fewer restrictions to entering markets and this will attract more people to commute to the market hence preventing health challenges and more use of public transport.
With locally available food, there are no preservatives and hormones used that can elongate product shelf-life; this attracts more customers looking for safe and organic grown foods. With food waste and loss, and pollution generated from the production, storage and transportation cycle, farmers adopted on-site composting, organically produced crops, less or no packaging and similar environmental friendly measures that mitigate climate change effects and improve public health.
Climate change awareness created concerns for some consumers ending up with a need to know about animal welfare, biodiversity, traceability, carbon footprints and product origin. Scaling this knowledge will assist in promoting the use of farmers’ open markets as a good alternative method of sourcing a variety of healthy foods in an eco-friendly manner. On the other hand, farmers’ open markets are sources of food tourism, whereby more income can be generated with much to research and grow based on consumers’ needs.
Lesson learnt with a “NOW” Action
From this global pandemic, it has been a lesson that, individual access to cash is not a solution to solve any predicament that can happen although money can save the purpose of purchasing goods and services. Access to food in farmers’ open markets will boost food business, job creation, access to healthy foods that meet consumers’ choices and need and less food waste with the minimum usage of packaging materials as customers will learn to carry their reusable bags or baskets and commute to the market.
Actions such as placing kiosks or tables away to allow social distancing, customers not touching products before buying, and use of face masks and handwashing stations or sanitiser with frequent surface disinfection will minimize the risks of COVID-19 and create a good environment for customers to visit markets and purchase fresh foods.
Find out more about it here;
- COVID-19 cases worldwide data
- Impact of COVID-19 on people’s livelihoods, their health and our food systems
- Vaccine equity
- Farmer’s market good for the environment
- Food insecurity during COVID-19 pandemic: A genuine concern for people from the disadvantaged community and low-income families in Province 2 of Nepal
- Here’s how COVID-19 creates food waste mountains that threaten the environment
- COVID-19 pandemic offers a rare chance for food systems transformation