A comparative national-level analysis of government food system resilience activities across four developed countries at varying stages of planning

Jane Lloyd; E R H Moore; Lyndsey Dowell; Roni Neff

doi:10.1186/s12889-024-17919-x

A comparative national-level analysis of government food system resilience activities across four developed countries at varying stages of planning

BMC Public Health. 2024 Feb 14;24(1):461. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-17919-x.

Authors

Jane Lloyd¹, E R H Moore², Lyndsey Dowell³, Roni Neff⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. jlloyd22@alumni.jh.edu.
² Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA, USA.
⁴ Center for a Livable Future & Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather events, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have highlighted global food system vulnerabilities and a lack of preparedness and prospective planning for increasingly complex disruptions. This has spurred an interest in food system resilience. Despite the elevated interest in food system resilience, there is a lack of comparative analyses of national-level food system resilience efforts. An improved understanding of the food system resilience landscape can support and inform future policies, programs, and planning.

Methods: We conducted a cross-country comparison of national-level food system resilience activities from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Sweden, and the United States. We developed upon and adapted the resilience framework proposed by Harris and Spiegel to compare actions derived from thirteen national food system resilience documents. We coded the documents based on the actions taken by the governments including: the food system resilience attributes utilized, the part of the food supply chain, the specific shocks or stressors, the implementation level, the temporal focus of action, and the expected impact on food security. We analyzed and compared countries' coded categories and subcategories, and category combinations.

Results: The results showed that these countries are addressing some of the same issues, are using multi-pronged policy actions to address food system resilience issues, and are focused on both retrospective reviews and prospective models of disruptive events to inform their decisions. Some work has been done towards preparing for climate change and other natural disasters, and less preparing has been done for other shocks or stressors.

Conclusions: This paper develops and applies a framework rooted in literature to understand the content of national-level food system resilience documents. The analysis identified potential gaps, concentrations, and themes in national food systems resilience. The framework can be applied to augment existing policy, create new policy, as well as to supplement and complement other existing frameworks.

Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand; Climate change; Comparative analysis; Emergency management; Food security; Food system resilience; Supply chains.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Developed Countries
Food Supply
Humans
Pandemics / prevention & control
Resilience, Psychological*
Retrospective Studies