Resituating Africa’s Urban Informal Food Sector

Abstract

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Food price volatility and socio-inequalities in household food insecurity during coronavirus disease-2019 lockdown in Nansana municipality, Wakiso district Uganda

“…The increase in food prices revealed from this present study could be attributed to the interrupted food supply chain such as limited transportation of food from rural to urban centres including Nansana municipality, leading to low supply of food in the market amidst a high demand as reported by Readon and colleagues [20]. It is worth noting that food merchants in Uganda use cheap informal transport systems such as public transport vehicles including taxis and buses to transport both food and passengers from rural to urban areas [15]. However, public transport was suspended during the COVID-19 lockdown in Uganda, which might have contributed to the interrupted food supply chain from rural to urban centres such as Nansana Municipality.…”

“…Besides, there was no food aid distribution during partial lifting of the lockdown, hence low demand from private contractors to supply food for food aid distribution by government. Since the majority of urban poor in Africa including Uganda depend on purchased food [15,20], then such high staple food prices observed during COVID-19 lockdown and partial lifting of lockdown in this present study may prevent the urban poor from purchasing food for their HHs, hence leading to low HH food consumption scores and HHFI. [43].The positive association between female headed HHs and HHFI could be explained by the fact that the vast majority of women in the developing world including Uganda are employed in the informal daily wage earning sectors and therefore, COVID-19 quarantine signi cantly reduces women's economic and livelihood activities, increasing poverty rates, and worsening food insecurity [11,43,44].…”

“…It is worth noting that the global recession, caused by COVID-19 lockdowns and other restrictions on business activity to control COVID-19 is expected to affect food security by disrupting the food supply chain and subsequently increase food prices or lower people's income and therefore, making them unable to purchase adequate food to achieve sustainable household food security [14]. However, the highest burden is expected to be on the urban poor HHs in low income countries of many African countries that survive on purchased food that reaches them through informal food supply chains [15,16].…”

Informal food chains and agrobiodiversity need strengthening—not weakening—to address food security amidst the COVID-19 crisis in South America

“…Informal networks of food retailing, low-cost transportation and distribution, processing, and agricultural production provide the most secure source of nutritious food for large populations in much of the world (Crush and Young 2019 ; Fan et al 2017 ; Zimmerer et al 2020 ). These informal food chains link poorer urban and rural consumers and workers with smallholder growers, thus providing both affordable food and extensive employment among persons that are food-insecure and near food-insecure (HLPE 2013 ; Maletta 2017 ).…”

“…Formal food chains of agribusinesses, supermarkets, and exporters are dependent upon the effective functioning of informal food chains. Throughout western South America and regions worldwide (e.g., in Africa; Crush and Young 2019 ; Zurayk 2020 ), formal food chains rely on farmworkers whose sustenance is derived from informal channels. One interviewee, a quinoa exporter, underscored that this mutual reliance could be threatened by the COVID-19 crisis.…”