Diverse adaptation strategies helped local food producers cope with initial challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic: Lessons from Québec, Canada

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerability of food systems to disturbances. Advocates have promoted short food supply chains as more resilient and adaptable thanks to their embeddedness in local economic and ecological networks. As part of a broader case study on challenges facing farmers in local food supply chains in Québec, Canada, we asked farmers about the pandemic's impacts on food production and marketing in the province, including how food producers coped with these challenges. We sent an online questionnaire to 1046 farmers who distribute food through direct marketing in Québec, identified through consumer-facing online platforms. We conducted follow-up interviews with 15 of the 133 farmers that completed the questionnaire to gain a better understanding of their pandemic-related challenges and opportunities, as well as their adaptation needs and strategies. We identified four main types of challenges among farmers: workforce, food demand and supply, changes in sales outlets and marketing channels, and other operational and development issues. In turn, six key adaptation strategies helped farmers reorganize their marketing and sales, which we categorize as: redistribution, streamlining, replacement, collaboration, farm adjustment, and outlet adjustment. Most surveyed local farmers felt well-prepared to adapt to four major challenges that the Covid-19 pandemic forged or escalated, and our findings suggest that they demonstrated remarkable resilience to additional challenges posed by the pandemic. Our study therefore contributes important insights about how flexibility and redundancy among local farmers stabilized the local food system during the onset of a global pandemic. (244 words).

Untangling the role of social relationships for overcoming challenges in local food systems: a case study of farmers in Québec, Canada

“…In concert with our previous study on the same farmer population, which indicated that farmers perceived environmental challenges as more severe than those arising from the Covid-19 pandemic-related impacts (Schreiber et al 2022 ), we suggest that farmers would benefit from more systemic and formal support at various levels, especially moderated and facilitated by associations. Associations played a particularly important role for the local farming community as they served many needs and helped to access different types of resources to address farmers’ challenges.…”

“…A total of 8% of our survey respondents sent food to the US and 2% internationally. Most survey respondents used farm stores (62%) to sell their food, followed by independent grocery stores (44%), restaurants (42%), and public and farmers markets (41%) (Schreiber et al 2022 ). Overall, close to 60% sold their products directly to consumers and through intermediaries, whereas a quarter of respondents sold only to end consumers, and 9% only to intermediaries (SI Fig.…”

“…In the interviews and survey, farmers explained that the unstable and extreme weather was limiting their food production capacity, destroying crops, and becoming a burden or even health threat for farmworkers. In fact, environmental challenges exceeded the new challenges posed to farmers by the disruptions of the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic (Schreiber et al 2022 ).…”

“…Furthermore, while many farmers valued social media as an overall affordable and easy way to stay connected with customers, and promote and manage sales, others emphasised the difficulty of learning to use online tools. The time and monetary investment as well as poor and expensive internet connection in the countryside seemed to be particularly challenging (Schreiber et al 2022 ). Finally, private and business customers were also crucial sources of non-monetary benefits including recognition, trust, dialogue, fun, encouragement, and understanding which helped farmers to adapt or overcome challenges.…”

“…(3) How do these actor groups contribute to overcoming challenges? This study is part of a larger research project on local farmers’ challenges and coping strategies in Québec (Schreiber et al 2022 ). The data collection took place from February to April 2021 after the study was approved by the Research Ethics Board of our University.…”