In early March of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a global health emergency that few governments were prepared to handle. The pandemic had exacerbated food insecurity with physical distancing, service closures, stay-at-home advisories and lack of PPE disrupting food supply chains and forcing food security organizations to rapidly adapt or shut down. This collaborative research project brought together scholars from Toronto Metropolitan University and the City of Toronto’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Office. It assessed how community-based organizations responded to the impacts of COVID-19 to bridge gaps in local and expert knowledge necessary for developing an emergency preparedness strategy for future food-system shocks, upholding the City of Toronto’s resilience and equity goals. The objectives of the project were to:
- Investigate the responses of communities and organizations, including those that emerged in Neighbourhood Improvement Areas (NIAs) to address heightened food insecurity during the outbreak and recovery in the City of Toronto;
- Assess emergency response preparedness in food security practice in other cities to evaluate how equity and resiliency concerns are considered before, during and after the outbreak;
- Broker local and expert knowledge on the impacts of the COVID-19 response on the resiliency and equity of Toronto’s food systems, and
- Inform and strengthen food-system practice and policy in future emergency response.
This study employed mixed methods and data sources to analyze the experiences of a range of food security programs in navigating the COVID-19 crisis, including: a meta-analysis of pre-existing surveys; key informant interviews; an environmental scan and content analysis of grey literature, and the delivery of an equity and action-focused web-based knowledge mobilization forum to build greater exchange between the City’s networks and stakeholders. The documented impacts of COVID-19 and the ensuing food security recovery in Canada’s largest urban region would be an asset to the national conversation on what is needed for future emergency planning, as well as the formation of the long overdue National Food Policy Strategy.