Coronavirus and food – a reading list

Staff at Feedback have curated some recommended reading for anyone interested in delving deeper into the relationship between COVID-19 and the food systems, from the role of our dysfunctional food system in its genesis through to the impacts of the pandemic and it’s response on food supply chains. If you have read something useful please let us know and we can add it to this list. 

Disclaimer: These articles do not represent the views of Feedback but we have found them interesting so wanted to share.

EMERGENCY: Coronavirus requires urgent action on food

The alliance for better food and farming, Sustain, outlines what emergency action needs to be taken on food.

https://www.sustainweb.org/blogs/mar20_this_is_an_emergency_coronavirus_requires_action_on_food/

Interview with Rob Wallace, Evolutionary biologist and public health phylogeographer

In this interview Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms = Big Flu provides speaks about the bigger picture of the COVID-19 crisis to argue that “we should demand food systems be socialized in such a way that pathogens this dangerous are kept from emerging in the first place”. If you’re after a longer read this piece from late January, goes into more depth on the same issues.

http://unevenearth.org/2020/03/where-did-coronavirus-come-from-and-where-will-it-take-us-an-interview-with-rob-wallace-author-of-big-farms-make-big-flu/

BBC Radio 4 – The Food Programme, Covid-19: The Food Dimension

Dan Saladino from BBC4’s Food Programme looks at the UK’s food security in light of COVID-19. The podcast also includes the ever-excellent Prof. Tim Lang from City University questioning why the government is letting the giant supermarkets take such a big role in vital food policy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gcwf

Coronavirus or antibiotic resistance: Our appetite for animals (wild and domestic) poses big disease risks

Laura H. Kahn, author of One Health and the Politics of Antimicrobial Resistance, puts COVID-19 in the context of increased consumption of wild and farmed meat. Written for the organisation that sets the Doomsday Clock – which we’d recommend not engaging with right this very second! If you are interested, see this Talking Politics podcast here.

https://thebulletin.org/2020/02/think-chinas-wet-markets-for-wildlife-spread-diseases-industrial-meat-production-is-worse/

Think Exotic Animals Are to Blame for the Coronavirus? Think Again.

Sonia Shah for The Nation links the rise of COVID-19 to human assaults on the environment.

https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/coronavirus-habitat-loss/

Modernising Meat Production will Help us Prevent Pandemics

The associate director of the Good Food Institute, Liz Specht, argues that the Coronavirus means we need to “modernise” meat production making a pitch for the techno-fix of lab grown meat.

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-modernizing-meat-production-will-help-us-avoid-pandemics/

Plastics had been falling out of favor then came coronavirus

An article for Bloomberg showcases the ripple effects of COVID-19 on unexpected areas of the food system.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-15/plastics-had-been-falling-out-of-favor-then-came-coronavirus

Coronavirus: How will the outbreak affect food and farming?

An article that covers broad impacts on the UK horticultural sector, including the prospect of a collapse in seasonal migrant labour.

https://www.edp24.co.uk/business/farming/how-will-the-coronvirus-outbreak-affect-food-and-farming-1-6560596