key: cord-0966980-f4a96mk7
authors: Panghal, Anupama; Mor, Rahul S; Kamble, Sachin S.; Khan, Syed Abdul Rehman; Kumar, Dinesh; Soni, Gunjan
title: Global food security post COVID‐19: dearth or dwell in the developing world?
date: 2021-10-22
journal: Agron J
DOI: 10.1002/agj2.20932
sha: 1bd46433b5ac220490b14fc9f952f979404f8ce4
doc_id: 966980
cord_uid: f4a96mk7

Today, global food systems are highly susceptible to food safety risks, economic shocks, price volatility, and natural disasters and pandemics, such as Coronavirus (COVID‐19). This paper draws the research on food and nutritional security, food fraud and associated economic ecosystem, and the disruptions due to COVID‐19 for socio‐economic inequality globally. It is concluded that the safety risks have pushed enforcement of measures to reduce food supplies, adversely impacting food availability. Also, COVID‐19 is likely to raise fleeting food security and nutritional concerns across the globe, which most likely resulted in the rise in poverty, food fraud, limiting food supply and access. Accelerated investments intended to develop more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient food systems will help shrink the effect of the pandemic and, hence, a way to control the foreseen food security crisis and economic growth. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

The COVID-19 pandemic, which started showing its presence in few countries of the world in January 2020, reached a most significant peak in a few months, spreading worldwide and creating disastrous impacts. Most nations closed their international borders for passengers and restricted the movement of commodities, which led to difficulty in self-sustenance for the countries that rely on imports to fulfill the food supply (Kim et al., 2020; Hussein & Greco, 2020) . The trade barriers and supply chain bottlenecks increase food insecurity and hunger by restricting producers' access to agriculture inputs, reducing supply stability (Savary et al., 2020) . It has also created uncertainties and unexpected inefficiencies in the global food supply chain. Availability of raw material, labor shortage, market inaccessibility of producers, transportation restrictions are among the few challenges on the supply-side of food supply chains (Kamble & Mor, 2021) , and similar constraints exist during procurement.

The pandemic situation made the policymakers and supply chain participants realize the need for autonomous and resilient systems. United Nation's reports depict that the prime objective under Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), i.e., zero hunger by 2030, seems incomplete given the conflicts, climate and economic shocks, and importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic.

The countrywide lockdowns & trade and transportation restrictions caused severe disruptions to the fresh food supply chain. Further, the crisis arrived at a time when global food security was already under strain. In turn, the situation has caused a global food security issue (The World Bank, 2020). A healthy and balanced diet help to maintaining immunity; however, due to high costs, this was out of the reach for many people with limited financial resources (Hirvonen et al., 2020) .

Poor coordination also necessitates developing a robust food supply chain and policy transformations (Swinnen & McDermott, 2020) . Food policies must ensure food security in difficult times for diverse resource-poor economies (Lambert et al., 2020) . Worldwide, rural people face food insecurity, including small and marginal farmers, landless farmers, and worker groups. In India, the pandemic resulted in an inability to sell crops and livestock products, reducing daily wages and dietary diversity (Jaacks et al., 2021) . In this line, the current paper addresses the status, challenges, and strategies to global food security issues, thereby raising the need for building more resilient and sustainable food systems.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 4 According to the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) under FAO, food insecurity means the lack of regular access to safe, healthy and nutritious food for expected growth and healthy life. The reasons may be the inaccessibility of food and the shortage of resources to access food, as observed at different points on a severity scale. FAO assesses food insecurity with the FIES framework. The framework shows that uncertainty and compromise on food quality lead to mild food insecurity, insufficient food causes moderate risk, and no food leads to severe food insecurity. Thus, food insecurity disrupts food consumption due to the deficiency of money and other resources. Severe food insecurity is extreme; however, even moderate food insecurity is annoying, and food access is ambiguous.

The SDP estimates show that approx. 26% of the global population did not have a nutritious secure food source in 2019, and poor people experienced food insecurity. Figure 2 shows the global progress for mission SDG2 of UNDP. 

Although arguably, the nations hold ample food to feed everybody (Udmale et al., 2020) , and sometimes face food shortages because of critical circumstances for food production, ecological and labor issues, supply chain disruptions, economic shocks, and pandemics (Food will act as a turning point for global food systems to be sustainable. The key drivers of acute food insecurity include sharp declines in food production, conflict, weather, natural disasters, economic imbalances, etc. (Hamilton et al., 2020) . The crisis is affecting the food security systems in different ways, i.e., availability (food supply), access (reach of food to people), utilization (nutrients intake), and stability (future needs fulfillment).

There is an impact on consumer behavior towards less nutrient and economical food and volatile prices. A significant decline in people's income level due to pandemics has also put food access at menace, particularly for the poor in most nations. The food safety and hygiene guidelines regarding processing, retailing, and distribution also threaten food security. The supply chain disruptions and the resulting policy interventions are increased, thus growing food security concerns. The integrated food security phase classification (IPC) study raises a worry about further worsening critical food insecurity problems in the already severely impacted nations. Global trade is another crucial component of food balances and has longlasting impacts on food security. It has created unprecedented challenges for the poultry industry as well. The impacts on the food industry may rise if food processing does not resume fully. The production of principal crops is likely to remain stable, and disruptions may cause food shortages. The labor shortage is a significant problem given curfews and mobility restrictions, calling for transforming global food systems. (Glauber et al., 2020) .

Food insecurity also increases healthcare expenses and structured violence and burdens nations' economies (Booth & Pollard, 2020) . Food insecurity could also result from corruption or the misuse of power. It may include poor social security causing vulnerability, ethnic conflicts, unfair usage of health system resources, restructuring of poor-quality food, and misconduct against the weaker sections of the society (CESCR, 1999). COVID-19 has increased violence and food fraud, including food adulterations, misrepresentation, and increased food crime (Khan et al., 2021) . Focused auditing programs on anti-fraud, along with transparency in food supply chains, provisional remote checks of food importers are requisite to prevent food frauds (Katy, 2020; Everstine, 2020) . For years, nutritional security has also been a prime concern, ensuring everybody's right to continued and eternal access to good-quality and adequate food. Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, global authorities have reinforced nutritional policies (Headey &Ruel, 2020) . Further, coping with COVID-19 has necessitated focused food and nutritional education programs to adopt healthy eating habits and monitor nutritional status among people (Ribeiro et al., 2020).

Amid (2020); Barichello (2020) suggest various strategies to manage food security, including close monitoring of food prices, ensuring smooth logistics of the regional agri-food supply chain, This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 7 and efficient supply system to fulfill food demand. Also, protecting the susceptible population and offering employment to migrants, regulating the wild food markets to curb the source of the disease, ensuring food access, developing 'green channels' for smooth and fast food delivery, and promoting digital technologies also help to cope with the crisis (FAO, 2020b (FAO, , 2020c Klassen & Murphy, 2020 drones, toll-free numbers, and autonomous machinery may also help combat future crises.

Ensuring food security nationwide also requires dealing with climatic disasters and adopting strategies and mitigation mechanisms (Tirivangasi, 2018) . Effective and intensive policy measures are mandatory to guide actions for sustainable agriculture. Innovations also reveal to tackle labor shortage, food waste, food delivery, e-commerce, etc., improving shelf life and expanding the market (Campbell et al. 2016; Farza et al., 2016) . Global economies should unite to explore opportunities and transformation strategies towards ample and nutritious food access for humankind. Strong collaborations among government authorities, NGOs, the agri-food industry, and other food systems participants, along with the circular economy and sustainable practices, is current need (Karmaker et al., 2020) . Various food, nutritional and dietary programs at schools and communities have become necessary (Fan et al., 2020) .

Given health threats, food production & markets diversification, localization of food chains, and robust systems for fortifying dietary issues are needed. Ensuring the functionality of agrifood supply chains, adequate social protection systems for vulnerable groups, and building highly sustainable food systems is requisite.

Disruptions in international and domestic markets restrict access to safe food by the consumer, further accelerated due to reduced income and less financial resources with consumers to buy nutritious food . A systemic transformation is mandatory for achieving global food supply chains, including a shift from profit maximization models to holistic and embedded business models and promoting fair practices This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 8

for workers and farmers (Prapha et al., 2020) . A supply chain's resilience entails its capacity to restore its output levels after a significant disturbance towards diversification and reshoring of supplier base and promoting an investor-friendly attitude throughout the supply chain (Baldwin & Evenett, 2020; Sarkis et al., 2020) . Globally, governments are making efforts to enhanced resilience in food supply chains and provide an economic stimulus package to small-scale farmers (Klassen & Murphy, 2020) . Improved transportation facilities for distributing more quantum of food items to the points of requirement is another strategy. Savary et al. (2020) and Kamble & Mor (2020) The recommendations range from food production sustenance in conventional food baskets, upgrading the infrastructure support, priority research on agricultural diversification, promoting household gardens for having resilient production systems for having nutritious and affordable food for a long duration. Regional investment in food production may help avoid such food insecurity in the future. Local food supply chains (preferably based on indigenous crops) and location-specific farming approach focuses on sustainability through locally available natural resources and improving household diversity and nutrition deficiencies with local agri-food supply chains (Bhavani & Gopinath, 2020) . Also, mechanization of food production and food processing facilities must tackle worker paucity and reduce food contamination risk due to infection at the workplace (Henry, 2020) . With a focused and strategic approach of policymakers and supply chain participants, the aim of achieving food security for the majority, with the help of robust food systems, maybe earned (Prapha et al., 2020) .

COVID-19 has created grave concerns about the ability of global food systems to provide local needs under adverse conditions. Despite the anticipated food crisis, the organizations consider the agri-food supply chains an important business, providing safe, affordable, nutritious food and enhanced access to food. Another risk to food security is the disruptions in domestic food supply chains, food fraud, and income losses. This emergency necessitates humans to work together irrespective of the sectors and borders to alleviate the impacts on food security. A shift in consumer dietary practices due to rapid changes in the food This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 9 environment is crucial to avoid a deterioration in nutritional and health status. Further, as the crisis unfolds, we should focus on reshaping the food systems for healthy and nutritious food in line with sustainable development goals. Although many nations claim to hold sufficient food stocks, access to ample and nutritious food to all and sundry is a challenge that needs attention towards proper utilization and sustainable food systems. Given such assurances, the food systems dwell for some time, but the actual figures appear to post COVID-19. Notably, there seems to be a vast scope of research in the area, and academiaindustry partnership can be of utmost importance in tackling food security issues.

Funding: None

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