Food Flow supports a Food Livelihoods approach. Supporting small-scale farmers who are not a part of the large retailer supply chain to continue working and earning income throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are grateful to be one part of a large web of organizations, government, and academia working to provide food into the communities most heavily impacted by the lockdown and COVID-19 pandemic.
With the rapidly increasing rate of food insecurity in South Africa, large scale food assistance to keep people fed is vital. Food Flow promotes a livelihood approach to protect, recover and strengthen individuals' and households' abilities to earn a living while providing fresh and nutritious food to the communities most impacted. The food grown in these communities is purchased through Food Flow donations to remain in these communities to feed those most in need.
Solely implementing large scale food aid programmes which purchase from the large corporate retailers and suppliers risks blocking local small scale food producers’ access to market. Disrupting farmers and other small scale food producers’ ability to continue working during this time risks putting them and their families into food and economic insecurity as well, and if their businesses are not able to recover from this period it may create dependency on external assistance in the longer term. In many emergencies, more lives are saved in the long term if people do not lose their livelihoods and become destitute as a result of the emergency protocols.
Additionally large scale food aid relies on canned and dry goods which often are less nutritious than fresh foods. Although this choice does have practical implementations in terms of storage capabilities and limiting contact between distribution points and communities, it does potentially limit the nutritional value which is a key element in supporting people’s immune systems during a health crisis.
If you’d like to learn more about food aid vs. food livelihoods during emergencies here is a great resource.