Beatrice Klein, Home Exam, Urban and Rural Systems and Sustainability
Covid 19 Implications on Food Security in Southern California
Word count: 1385
Introduction
Southern California, the leading agricultural state in United States, plays an essential part
during the Covid 19 pandemic and access to food. During a health crisis, having limited or
uncertain access to adequate food, known as food-insecurity, is associated to physical and
mental health and chronic disease (Leddy et al, 2020). Hunger is a barrier in sustainability
development and a hard state for individuals to escape from. The health effects of hunger
make it difficult for individuals to improve their livelihoods (United Nations,2020). Hence
understanding the food system and how the Covid 19 pandemic and following restrictions has
affected it is directly related to SDG 2, zero hunger.
Prior to the corona virus disease, 1 out of 9 households were food insecure in the United
States, however, disproportionately spread among different social groups. Food insecurity
among Hispanics are high, for example in 2018, 16.2 % Hispanic households were food
insecure compared with 11.1 % in the general population (Leddy et al, 2020). Located next to
the Mexican boarder, southern California has a large Hispanic population and during the
pandemic the number of food insecure households has increased in cities such as Los Angeles
(De la Haye et al, 2020) and among farm workers in Monterey Valley (UC Berkeley School
of Public Health et al., 2020). The negative development of food insecurity follows the
preexisting pattern, for example in Los Angeles county, 38 percent of the Latin households
where food insecure in April- May 2020, making that the largest racial/ethnical group
suffering from food insecurity (De la Haye et al, 2020).
This pattern shows that the there is an inequality in terms of food security and making it
evident that in order to understand the livability in Southern California you need to
understand the local context. As stated by Nastar et al (2019), the question of livability needs
to be understood from the question of who is affected and why? As important it is to
understand the local context, the geography of southern California is deeply connected to its
surroundings. Relating to southern California’s geographical context the region also needs to
be understood from a livelihood perspective of knowledge, politics, scale and dynamics
(Scoones,2009), This perspective will be presented in a system analysis, emphasizing on the
system interlinkages and by applying the mentioned livelihood aspects.
Beatrice Klein, Home Exam, Urban and Rural Systems and Sustainability
Food system and Covid 19 effects
The food system in Los Angeles can be understood from two modes of consumption, inhome consumption and outside home consumption. In-home consumption consists of
household consumption from grocery stores, markets etcetera. Outside home consumption
refer to consumption from institutions outside of the household such as restaurants, school
servings etcetera. The latter being closed overnight due to Covid 19 restrictions, created a
shift in demand from less outside of home consumption to more in-home consumption.
(Leddy et al, 2020)
The close down has resulted in an increased poverty, due to completely loss of job or reduced
working hours. This has left people with less means to purchase the quantity and quality of
food needed, for example in Los Angeles the applications for Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP) has nearly doubled since the start of the pandemic. Due to the
shift of consumption modes and behavioral changes such as herding and panic shopping,
grocery stores has less supplies of food leading to less donation to charitable food. As a
result, food banks are purchasing more food, driving the cost and distributing less food per
household. Which also affect the number of households being food insecure in the city.
(Leddy et al, 2020)
From the supply perspective, there are disruption caused by Covid 19 and followed
restrictions in the food system. One being that producers themselves contracting the virus and
transport restrictions (Smith& Wesselbaum, 2020). Studies show that farm workers in
Monterey Valley, an agricultural area in southern California, have been heavily affected by
the spread of the virus which has taken a toll of the health and wellbeing of farm workers. In
general, over a 5-month period, 13 % of the farm workers tested positive in PCR tests for
Covid 19 and the prevalence of antibodies from farm workers who tested negative for active
infection has increased from 9.1 % in July to 19.4 % in October. 57 % of the farm works say
that they have been going to work despite having Covid 19 symptoms. (UC Berkeley School
of Public Health et al., 2020).
This unsafe environment for farm workers makes the agricultural industry less attractive for
Mexican migrants, which constitutes a large proportion of the work force (Berkeley News,
2020). The lack of work force on the farms and the instant shift of demand leads to a lot of
food are left in the ground instead of harvested (Berkeley News, 2020, Leddy et al, 2020).
Beatrice Klein, Home Exam, Urban and Rural Systems and Sustainability
The implications of food insecurity in the region and less work-migration creates a negative
reinforcing loop in the food system outlined in figure 1. When the food insecurity increases
the population has less access to agricultural products, leading to and increased rural poverty.
This, along with the decreased number of workers creates less availability to agricultural
products which in turn enhance the food insecurity in both urban and rural areas.
Figure one
Casual loop diagram of how Covid 19 has affected the food system
Note. Authors creation
The Covid 19 pandemic has showcased a vulnerability and lack of resilience in the current
food system in southern California increasing the problem of food security. The dependency
on urban consumption and migrant Mexican workers has been challenged. In regard to who is
most affected it is, as in many cases, those who were already vulnerable. (Revi et al, 2014).
Unsustainable Livelihood in Southern California
The Impact of Covid 19 food insecurity occurs in existing economic and health disparities,
largely driven by systematic racism (Leddy et al, 2020). There is a rural poverty where
Mexican immigrants coming for seasonal farming in southern California, not having the
ability to continue a fulfilling life and hence becoming an underclass in America (Martin et
Beatrice Klein, Home Exam, Urban and Rural Systems and Sustainability
al, 2006). In lights of Covid 19, the poor rural migrant farm worker is now faced with the
challenge of balancing their economic gains with the health risk of working in a farm where
social distancing is hard to uphold. The health aspect, hence, can be understood as an
important part in the livelihood puzzle in rural areas, and combined with a power perspective,
provides an understanding about both knowledge and politics in the regional context
(Scoones,2009).
The current migration pattern between Mexico and Southern California is complex but can
partly be understood through the inequality between the countries and the already existing
social group in southern California, which are common understandings of migration drivers
(Massey et al, 1993). This relationship creates a direct social and economic connection
between southern California and Mexican households. For example, due to the Covid 19,
farm workers report less remittances to their home country (UC Berkeley School of Public
Health et al., 2020) In the case of southern Californian food system, hence, scale is an
important factor in both understanding the cause and effects of the rural livelihood
(Scoones,2009).
Covid 19 has showcased that the context and conditions are never stable. The dynamic
between urban and rural shift and are in this case being stressed. Ingo Zazda (2011)
emphasize that in order to develop the regional agriculture, the understanding of the role of
the urban consumer is necessary. Zazda (2011) mainly acknowledge this in terms of
multifunctional development of peri urban areas, but the question remains when a large part
of the urban (and rural) population is suffering from poverty, health issues and food
insecurity. The demand could then, in terms of a crisis such as the pandemic, be understood
to be shaped in terms of needs rather than wants or values, which might guide the agricultural
sector towards a more resilient sustainable development.
Concluding words
If we truly want to abandon the paradigm of rural areas only supply urban areas with cheap
food (Van der ploeg et al 2011) and transit towards sustainable development we need to
acknowledge that current system is responding inadequate in relation sustainability
knowledge, politics, scale and dynamic. The Covid 19 pandemic has stressed the need for a
more resilient structure that take all of mentioned livelihood aspects in account.
Beatrice Klein, Home Exam, Urban and Rural Systems and Sustainability
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Beatrice Klein, Home Exam, Urban and Rural Systems and Sustainability
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