COVID-19 has unveiled acute and multi-scalar vulnerabilities in the global food system. Outbreaks in meatpacking plants and among temporary farm laborers confined to cramped living quarters, supply chain disruptions leading to wasted crops and empty supermarket shelves and surging demand at food banks all point to threats to food security. Through an interdisciplinary Working Group and Virtual Workshop with international participants, we will publish analyses and evidence-based recommendations about the potential effectiveness of redistributive policies to increase resilience in the face of the current crisis and into the future.
This Virtual Roundtable has four main objectives. First, to identify the vulnerabilities brought to light during the COVID-19 crisis and examine the degree to which these vulnerabilities are connected to concentration of wealth, agricultural land, food sector corporate power and food commodities. Second, to explore the potential effects of redistribution of food systems assets (e.g. land, intellectual property, production quotas, corporate ownership stakes, and knowledge) on ecological sustainability, food security and social justice. Third, to identify specific policy mechanisms for redistribution of food system assets based on examples drawn from both Canadian and international contexts. Lastly, to explore the applicability of a 5Ds of Redistribution policy framework, informed by the food sovereignty movement, to consider when weighing redistribution policy options.
Jennifer Clapp
Visiting Scholar
Jennifer Clapp is a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability and Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Canada.
Dr. Clapp has published widely on the global governance of problems that arise at the intersection of the global economy, food security and food systems, and the natural environment. Her most recent research projects have examined the political economy of financial actors in the global food system, the politics of trade and food security, and corporate concentration in the global food system. She has also written on policy and governance responses to the global food crisis, the political economy of food assistance, and global environmental policy and governance. Her most recent books include Speculative Harvests: Financialization, Food, and Agriculture (with S. Ryan Isakson, Fernwood Press, 2018), Food, 2nd Edition (Polity, 2016), Hunger in the Balance: The New Politics of International Food Aid (Cornell University Press, 2012), Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment, 2ndEdition (with Peter Dauvergne, MIT Press, 2011), and Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance (co-edited with Doris Fuchs, MIT Press, 2009).
Dr. Clapp’s work has been widely recognized. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient of numerous awards, including: the 2012 Award for Excellence in Food Studies Research from the Canadian Association for Food Studies, a 2013 Trudeau Fellowship, the 2018 Innis-Gérin Medal by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) for her contributions to the social sciences, and the 2018 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association. She also received the 2014 Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision at the University of Waterloo.
