May 20, 2020

5 Things We’ve Learned About COVID-19, Climate And Food Systems

Written By: Patty Fong, Program Director, Climate & Health and Lauren Baker, Director of Programs at the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.

We’ve known for some time that 2020 was going to be a “super year” for climate action. What we didn’t know was that the year would quickly spiral into intertwined public health, economic, and food crises worldwide. It has been easy to lose sight of the fact that we are in the midst of a planetary emergency, too. Yet, the coronavirus pandemic has confirmed that our collective relationship to the natural world must be transformed; human, animal, and ecological health are inextricably linked and mutually dependent.

Like many, we have been questioning if the COVID-19 experience could result in truly transformative, structural change and how we can apply what we are learning now, in the short-term, to ensure our actions support resilience and sustainability over the long-term. Here are five insights into how the pandemic and the climate crisis and are deeply interconnected, with food systems as the nexus point where these agendas meet.

Broken food systems create the conditions for disease

70% of emerging infectious diseases over the last 30 years are zoonotic (i.e., originating from wild or domesticated animals). When we radically alter nature, changing land-use in the name of commercial logging, cattle ranching, and other agricultural needs, we create the conditions for zoonotic diseases to emerge and thrive. Practices inherent to intensive livestock and factory farming further compound the risk of zoonotic spillover and the probability of outbreaks.

We also know that the same practices — agriculture, food production, deforestation — are major drivers of climate change, representing 37% of anthropogenic GHG emissions. The case for transitioning towards regenerative animal agriculture and agroecological, regenerative, and circular food systems that work with, not against, nature has never been clearer.

Crises exacerbate existing inequalities in our societies

The devastating impacts of the pandemic and the limitations of emergency response measures are acutely felt by the most marginalized — including the elderly, women, small-holder farmers, low-paid and frontline workers, those in precarious employment, and living conditions, vulnerable communities, and those already struggling with food insecurity. News emerging from Europe and the US reveals how race and racial inequalities are a risk factor for COVID-19, while the World Food Programme has warned that a looming food crisis will impact 265 million people by the end of the year.

The impacts of the climate crisis are felt most acutely in these same communities and by these same people. As we race to provide critical COVID-19 relief, we need to ensure that measures are being put in place to build community resilience — adequate food and social policy, employment protection, and health care services — and that these are underpinned by more equitable, meaningful governance structures. This will enable people to co-create the solutions that suit where they live and to better respond to and manage the worst of climate change.

There are no “silver bullet” solutions

Just as Brazil announced it was cutting back on its environmental enforcement duties, which include protecting the Amazon from accelerating deforestation, the Trump administration decided to ease enforcement of environmental regulations covering polluting industries, which include the use of pesticides. Decisions we make today to tackle the immediate threat of COVID-19 will affect us for generations to come.

Integrated, systemic response strategies to both the pandemic and the climate crisis can tackle the deep structural inequities and power imbalances in our societies, enable us to better protect natural resources and land rights, create new ways of doing business, strengthen livelihoods, and uphold the leadership of Indigenous Peoples, farmers, and food workers. Single-focussed interventions and siloed approaches are not enough to respond to the scale of the challenges we face today and, in many cases, can result in unintended consequences.

Working together on a global scale is essential and possible.

The crisis has elicited a global response, unlike anything we’ve seen before, revealing that we can adapt and respond rapidly when needed. While some countries shift to focus on the recovery, others face the pandemic with great uncertainty. In a way that is appropriate to their local and regional contexts, leaders must work together to build strategic alignment on key issues such as human, animal, and planetary health, keeping their sights on long-term issues while designing near-term economic and social assistance.

At the same time, we need to strengthen our global governance systems so that we can monitor and learn from situations as they unfold and adapt our strategies accordingly to be more effective. Like climate change, pandemics do not respect geopolitical boundaries. By connecting and collaborating across issues, sectors, and silos, the actions, investments, and policies needed to transform systems holistically and systemically can be accelerated.

We know enough to act.

From the one million species at risk of extinction and to the millions of people experiencing the pandemic, the exploitation of the natural world, and our reliance on broken food systems is inextricably linked. Fortunately, low-carbon and resilient food systems can contribute to a 1.5°C world by 2050 and help to usher in a future that is healthy, sustainable, and equitable for all.

The opportunities are plentiful — from embracing agroecological systems that nurture ecosystems and rebuild soil fertility to improving human, animal, and planetary health to initiating global, local, and regional processes that put food systems at the heart of policy- and decision-making — it’s just a matter of acting according to the future we want to see.

Ultimately, as we respond to — and, in some parts of the world, start to recover from — COVID-19, we have an opportunity to drive the systemic transformations and structural changes we collectively seek.