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Throughout history, urban farmers have been a source of food and social benefits amid political, economic, ecological, and social crises. In a paper published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, Associate Professor Nevin Cohen and colleagues examine how urban farmers have responded to and been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Based on data collected in the summer of 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, the paper builds on an international research project (FEW-meter) that developed a methodology to measure material and social benefits of urban agriculture in France, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. over two growing seasons. The authors surveyed project partners to ascertain the effects of Covid-19 on those gardens and farms and interviewed policy stakeholders in each country to investigate the wider impacts of the pandemic on urban agriculture.
According to the findings, the pandemic resulted in multiple challenges to gardens and farms including the loss of ability to provide support services, lost income, and reductions in output because of reduced labor supply. But COVID-19 also created several opportunities: new markets to sell food locally; more time available to gardeners to work in their allotments; and increased community cohesion as neighboring gardeners looked out for one another.
“Urban agriculture projects proved resilient in the face of Covid and will be important sources of social, emotional, and nutritional support for communities as cities seek to rebound from the pandemic,” says Dr. Cohen.
