Interviews - issue #4
As global food systems and supply chains have been disrupted by Covid-19, Francis Mwanza, researcher and writer on African and local foods, and former head of office of the United Nations World Food Programme’s London office, UK, introduces a series of interviews looking at how communities around the world are adapting and finding local food security solutions to a pandemic-struck planet.
Many years ago I interviewed a Zambian village elder who warned me against eating processed foods, which are unhealthy and unreliable, and recommended eating local foods. Any talk about local foods, then and now, tends to focus on vegetables, fruits and, sometimes, edible insects like mopane worms or locusts, and very small amounts of meat. This has helped my family during this pandemic as we have been dependent on our garden for cultivated and spontaneous vegetables, just as the elder advised.
Covid-19 has brought renewed global focus on local producers, local foods and food supply systems. It has come at a time when global food needs are at unprecedented levels, with one out of nine people facing hunger every day and a record 168 million already requiring humanitarian assistance.
As the World Food Programme points out, the Covid-19 pandemic is complicating existing crises and threatening to worsen others, with the potential for multiple famines in the coming months. And the UN is reporting that there is now a high risk that the broader disruptive effect of Covid-19 will drive up levels of global food insecurity. Yet one third of the food produced - that could feed all of the world’s vulnerable people - goes to waste.
This pandemic is but one example of likely crises the world faces and should prepare for. Fixing our broken food system is more urgent than ever before. Everyone eats, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. And everyone is involved in the food system, whether the system is local, regional or global.
Unfortunately, the most common system is the agro-industrial system, dominated by a few multinational corporations, flooding markets with predominantly processed foods, which include unhealthy levels of sugar, salt, and fat, leading to health issues like obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes (all risk factors for Covid-19).
With lockdowns, sparked by the spread of coronavirus, the global food system and its global supply chains have been disrupted and continue to be under pressure. The pandemic is negatively and seriously affecting economies and daily life everywhere.
Now, after years marked by limited access to food, particularly for the poorest, rising or often fluctuating prices, ecological threats to seed diversity, and what is generally referred to as “food sovereignty”, Covid-19 is demanding that we hit the reset button on our broken food system.
Local food systems are becoming stronger because of their short supply chain, minimally processed food from local farmers, and food that fits local consumption habits. The push now is for resilient and sustainable food systems for urban centres, peri-urban and rural areas, with increasing emphasis on sufficient and diverse local production, affordable prices, good quality, healthy eating, and a stable food supply.
In major cities, whether it be New York, Kigali, Harare, Bogota, Mumbai, or Lahore, an increasing number of people are responding creatively with non-traditional farming methods: tunnel, vertical and micro gardening. We are now seeing more rooftop gardens in unlikely places in both developed and developing countries.
These methods are helping shorten supply chains, ensuring access to fresh foods, with a smaller carbon footprint compared with the international food supply chain. Restaurants are also engaging in precision indoor gardening. And chefs in the mainstream restaurants are exploring local markets for local ingredients and hitherto little-used food plants.
In Africa and Latin America, for example, it is estimated that some 360 million residents are already engaged in urban or peri-urban local food production. In Fiji, home gardening is being promoted and funded by the government as a direct response to Covid-19 and the challenges of the disrupted food supply chain. And there is another push: a push for “ancestral” foods. There is now a stronger movement trying to protect rare indigenous seeds and take seeds back to tribal communities.
Traditional lifestyles and eating locally-grown or locally-available spontaneous plants are being seen as an effective arsenal to dampen the effects of the broken global food system and improve the health of local communities with nutritional, rich, local foods. While conventional vegetables like cabbage, lettuce and spinach are often heavily dependent on inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides, the cost of which continue to rise and can have negative impacts on the environment, traditional vegetables like amaranth and African egg plant have an advantage because they produce well without such inputs. This holds out the prospect of a broad, hardy, nutritionally-sound local food base, which does not require inputs (that many local farmers cannot afford).
Covid-19 is fuelling the fire for addressing the failures of an inequitable and broken global food system and demanding that we address food security issues differently. As the interviews in this section show, the pandemic may be hurting us and undermining food security for the poorest, but it is also helping to highlight the necessity for thriving local and regional food systems, and focus on Indigenous, sustainable, and nutritious local foods.
MEXICORaúl Mondragón, founder, Colectivo AhuejoteRaúl founded Colectivo Ahuejote to work with farmers in the Xochimilco lake area to the south of Mexico City, first settled by the Aztecs, where floating islands known as chimpanas are farmed according to traditional methods. The organisation’s focus is on building a sustainable agrifood system, connecting the farmers to consumers and local markets through sales networks and eco-tourism.
Colectivo Ahuejote, Mexico.
Feature - Issue #15
New Ways of Being and Healing Outside
A conversation between Sonji Shah and Maymana Arefin with illustrations by Camila Fudissaku
Resetting Global Food Systems
MEXICORaúl Mondragón, founder, Colectivo AhuejoteRaúl founded Colectivo Ahuejote to work with farmers in the Xochimilco lake area to the south of Mexico City, first settled by the Aztecs, where floating islands known as chimpanas are farmed according to traditional methods. The organisation’s focus is on building a sustainable agrifood system, connecting the farmers to consumers and local markets through sales networks and eco-tourism.
Colectivo Ahuejote, Mexico.
A chinampa in the Xochimilco lake area to the south of Mexico City.
Colectivo Ahuejote, Mexico.
UKJim Sheeran, manager, St Raphael Edible GardenJim manages the St Raphael Edible Garden, which is based on St Raphael’s estate, the most disadvantaged neighbourhood in Brent, London. The garden also hosts the Sufra food bank and community hub, which distributes food and support to vulnerable people and families living in extreme poverty, helping them to survive, improve their wellbeing, and find work to become financially stable.
St Raphael’s Edible Garden.
St Raphael Edible Garden in Brent, UK.
Rodney Dawkins, who has lived on St Raphael’s Estate with his wife for eight years, had never seriously contemplated eating from the plot to the table before the pandemic struck. Furloughed from his job as a warehouse supervisor, and with his children back home from university, gardening his patch has provided him with space and a sense of purpose. “It was just a bushy garden full of weeds before the lockdown”, he says. Now he is growing tomatoes, peas, lettuce, green beans, cabbage, peppers, and lemon and orange trees. He says it has given him a greater appreciation for nature, and by replacing a daily intake of chocolate with strawberries he has improved his diet. “Compared to the food from the supermarkets this is much fresher and tastes much sweeter,” he says. Although far from self-sufficient, he adds, it has also been a money saver.
Not all new growers have a garden. Claudette Drummond lives in a top floor flat in a block on St Raphael’s Estate but the lack of space hasn’t prevented her from growing potted brussels sprouts, tomatoes, lavender and rosemary along the walkway. “I’m hoping the pumpkin plant will go all the way up the drainpipe and around the kitchen window,” she says.
COLOMBIAAdriana Bueno,founder, Hábitat SurAdriana founded Hábitat Sur to highlight and preserve the social, cultural and ecological wealth of the Amazon. Her organisation runs the Hábitat Sur Nature Reserve, a responsible tourism project based on agroecological principles; the NgüeChica Cultural Centre, which focuses on the intergenerational transmission of knowledge from the elders of the Indigenous Tikuna, Yagua and Kokama tribes to the younger generations; and El Rastrojo Cultural and Environmental Centre, a local market on the outskirts of Leticia for artists, artisans, farmers, and entrepreneurs.
Hábitat Sur, Colombia.
USSamuel S.T. Pressman, founder, Samuel’s Food GardensSamuel founded Samuel’s Food Gardens in Brooklyn, New York, to inspire and teach city dwellers how to grow food at home. His first rooftop garden was built during the pandemic, in May 2020, on a rooftop patio in Brooklyn to provide food for himself and his flatmates, and he has partnered with the RETI Center to work on food security and rapid resilience health initiatives like Covid-19 testing and mask handouts.
Samuel’s Food Gardens, US.
Samuel’s Food Gardens, US.
PHILIPPINESCherrie Atilano, founder and CEO, AGREACherrie founded AGREA to focus on sustainable agriculture in the Philippines, a country of more than 7,000 islands. The country is reliant on Vietnam and Thailand for rice, and food imports are flown or shipped to the islands. AGREA is working to connect local farmers with local markets, and promote gardening and farming to ensure food security for the country.
AGREA, Philippines.
SIERRA LEONEFatmata Mansaray, Kenema Kola Nut producer, member of the Slow Food NetworkFatmata is a community educator and an activist in the fields of sustainable agriculture and development. She is active in the 10,000 Gardens in Africa project, which includes the establishment of gardens in schools to provide healthy food for schoolchildren. She is committed to the diffusion of slow food values, consumer education, training the next generation, and promoting local biodiversity.
Kola nuts being prepared. After the nuts are removed from the husks they are soaked in water for about 24 hours to soften the skin, which is then removed by hand.
Farmer and primary school teacher Mustapha Moigua harvesting the kola nut from the Cola nitida tree in the Kenema District of Sierra Leone.
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGOAlpha Sennon, founder, WhyFarmAlpha launched WhyFarm in 2015 to promote sustainable agriculture to young people through what he terms agri-edutainment. WhyFarm also runs the Farmers Collective, through which new farmers come together and exchange labour, goods, and products. One of WhyFarm’s signature projects is the creation of a superhero character called Agriman, the world’s most powerful food provider, who is there to ensure that children eat healthily and don’t waste one grain of rice.
WhyFarm, Trinidad and Tobago.
INDIAShishir Joshi, co-founder, Project Mumbai Shishir founded Project Mumbai in 2018 as a not for profit to promote civic empowerment and volunteering. During the pandemic Project Mumbai was a partner in the launch of Khaanachahiye, an initiative to provide food relief to people affected by the lockdown, feeding over 6 million people across the region.
Project Mumbai, India.
