Last month, we posted Coronavirus crisis raises huge questions over food security. In the UK:
Thousands of British workers will need to gather the harvest https://t.co/rE4EzTDYAS pic.twitter.com/6XgrCmF2bG— Reuters (@Reuters) April 29, 2020
Thousands of British workers will need to help gather the harvest as seasonal workers from other parts of Europe are unable to travel due to the coronavirus lockdown, the environment minister said on Wednesday.
Initial signs don't look encouraging:
The UK has less than a month to fill tens of thousands of fruit and vegetable picking jobs after recruiters found most locals offered the work ultimately turned it down https://t.co/88tEAUg0Jg— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) April 29, 2020
Only 150 people have taken up jobs picking fruit and vegetables after a recruitment drive by a charity that garnered 50,000 expressions of interest, underscoring the difficulty farmers are facing in maintaining food supplies.
Further afield, cities from Amsterdam to Singapore want to introduce policies to improve food security:
Urban experts predict the shock from #coronavirus will push #cities to become more self-reliant and resilient, with a focus on sustainable transport, energy and food security | @rinachandran reports #COVID19 #resilience @KateRaworth https://t.co/sxc8Zq2kwn— Megan Rowling (@meganrowling) April 21, 2020
The current COVID-19 situation underscores the importance of local food production.
The COVID-19 crisis has focused the attention of many governments to treat food security more seriously as a national security issue.
Who knows? One day the UK might think about it too:
What is the UK's Food Plan? I don't ask this lightly. 2 weeks ago, proposals went to George Eustice SecState @DefraGovUK & Duncan Selbie chief exec of @PHE_uk - https://t.co/hgPMR2CTgY Today, I expressed alarm on @BBCFarmingToday - https://t.co/aXcFHVKfxW We need clear Food Plan— Professor Tim Lang (@ProfTimLang) April 28, 2020
Reading @ProfTimLang ‘Feeding Britain’ - when Brexit was the biggest threat to the UK food system... now it’s Brexit + Covid-19 pic.twitter.com/k52G4d0ERP— Kristen Bullivant (@kristenevb) April 10, 2020
The covid pandemic has obviously changed our thinking on food and how it is sourced:
An interesting reflection on food today.— Professor Janet Cade (@JanetCade) April 28, 2020
A new normal for feeding Britain? https://t.co/YJQQ68FGw7
The environmental charity Hubbub reports, from a survey of 2000 people, that 44% of people are enjoying cooking more since the lockdown, and 47% enjoying spending more time eating with their household. Food waste is down with 48% reporting throwing away less food, through more careful meal planning (51%) and getting better at using leftovers (41%). Take away eating is crashing, with 43% buying fewer takeaways as they worry about contamination and 41% saving money by not ordering takeaways. There is a surge of interest in local shops, with 29% visiting their local corner store for the first time, with increased interest in butchers, milk deliveries, box schemes, farms shops and greengrocers.
In Devon:
#devoncarbonplan discussion @PlymUni - there are questions being raised about the assumptions we have made around settlement- for food security and resilience which might mean that we now need different spatial choices about where we put new development in order to reduce carbon— Devon Climate Emergency (@devonclimate) December 11, 2019
Even our friends in the minerals industry – whose business model relies on trashing, and thereby losing forever, some of our best agricultural land – touts, without irony, the challenges of food security:
Agricultural lime plays a key role in protecting the #soil; maintaining a healthy, sustainable and productive environment essential to meeting the challenges of food security. #MPAAgLime pic.twitter.com/becPf9MJ5b— Mineral Products Association (@MineralProduct) April 20, 2020
