Building a sustainable agriculture strategy for resilient global food systems

The agrifood system has experienced a massive, seismic shock as a result of the COVID pandemic. On the supply side, we’ve seen factory farm outbreaks causing labour shortages, closed borders and food availability issues. On the demand side we’ve seen a story of two halves: both consumer stockpiling and record demand from food banks, while food service demand dried up, leaving milk to be poured down the drain and vegetables left to be ploughed back into fields. The pandemic has exposed weak links in supply chains, has illustrated the overlap of social and environmental challenges in food systems and the imperative to work on both types of issues side-by-side.