In a Nutshell

The COVLess Research Project

Urban Alternative Food Networks (AFN), Community-supported Agriculture (CSA) and other creative food system and supply chain oriented concepts combine food security approaches with increased environmental sensibility and social connectedness. The Covid-19 pan­demic, though severely impacting on food security and societal integrity in urban areas in particular, may also offer new opportunities and serve as an accelerator for these innovative concepts to be more widely implemented. Using the large South-East Asian urban centres Bangkok and Singapore as examples, the project explores the impacts of the pandemic on urban food security and social cohesion, explores potentials and opportunities to enhance creative and more socially inclusive food initiatives in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, and assesses lessons learnt in the context of citizen-oriented solutions for more resilient and ecologically and socially sound urban food systems.