Alternative food networks amid the Covid-19: reflections under the aspect of resilience

Abstract

The covid-19 crisis brought changes in several contexts, including in the food sector. Food services were strongly impacted by the abrupt restriction of operation of food retails. However, the Alternative Food Networks (AFN) have proven to be resilient in this process. To better understand this issue, two cases of AFN were evaluated, being a Community-supported Agriculture (CSA) and a sustainable food Buying Club (BC), both in the Federal District (Brazil). The cases are configured as systems that operate in different ways but having in common the promotion of weekly access to healthy food from family farming. In dealing with the social isolation related to the pandemic, it was possible to verify that both cases needed to adapt themselves. In both cases, health and safety measures were included, which required adjustments in operations. Moreover, at the CSA, it was necessary, for example, to change the meeting place to collect the products, and at the BC, the sale to non-members was interrupted. Despite the changes, none of the systems, unlike conventional food business models, suffered a negative impact on economic performance or changes in the profile of the product obtained by consumers. In fact, there was an increase of the consumer demand, in both cases, ensuring income for the producers involved and access to healthy food by consumers. Thus, understanding the characteristics of AFN provided important subsidies for favoring the producer-consumer relationship also in times of crisis such as the covid-19 pandemic.