THE ROLE OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE IN MITIGATING IMPACTS OF PANDEMICS FORSUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY

Abstract

Pandemics like COVID-19 have spread rapidly and extensively around the world resulting to profound implications on food and nutrition security. The pandemics affects food systems stability which threatens food availability, food access and food utilization. Covid-19 has since 2019 become a major disruption to food supply chains due to lockdowns that have resulted to low supply of factors of production like inputs, labour among others resulting to decreased productivity of production systems. The pandemics have resulted in lower incomes and higher prices of some foods, putting food out of reach for many, and undermining the right to food and hence affecting the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2. The pandemics are intertwined with the sustainability of food security in complex ways. The Covid-19 pandemic raises the risk that government’s attention and funding will be diverted from climate change and environmental maintenance concerns such as biodiversity and ecosystem maintenance to health systems maintenance which will affect the sustainability of the food system and the nations’ economies. These situations call for transformation of food systems through farming communities embracing sustainable production systems like organic farming which is low cost and uses locally available resources. Organic farming will enable communities to increase food and nutrition security by enabling diversification of food systems and empower vulnerable and marginalized groups and promote sustainability of the production system across all aspects of food supply chains, from production to consumption. This will occur because organic farming facilitates inter-system linkages that ensures that the food systems, ecological systems, and economic systems results to positive synergies for increased system productivity for sustainable food and nutrition security. This way farmers will be well equipped to steer the world towards a ‘new normal’ in the way it produces food, trades, and consumes and support the resilience and growth of agricultural producers.