Good Questions 11: Where are governments’ plans for dealing with food system disruptions?

Abstract

In April 2020, when most businesses in the United States were shut down because of Covid-19, many people became unemployed and their incomes vanished. They lined up at the charitable food banks in their neighborhoods, but the shelves were quickly emptied. At the same time, many large farms buried their crops because the restaurants and hotels they served had closed. Some news agencies said the obvious solution was for government to organize transport of those farms’ produce to food banks or to idle restaurants for distribution to people in need. Only the federal government could make that work at a large scale, perhaps with the help of the National Guard and the U.S. army’s logistic capacities. It didn’t happen. Where are governments’ plans for dealing with food system disruptions, in the US and throughout the world?