In this blog post, Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of UK NGO Sustain, argues that the cost of living crisis in the UK should be tackled using windfall taxes on large corporations that are reporting record profits; Real Living Wages that are linked to the cost of living; strong safety nets such as free school meals for all children; extending the principle of “public money for public goods” to cover more state spending on food; joined-up local responses to food crises, e.g. through local food poverty alliances; and strong accountability in government for action on food poverty.

This paper assesses four recent influential publications on food - the EAT Lancet Commission, the World Resources Report, Growing Better from the Food and Land Use Coalition and the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land. It argues that they do not give enough attention to the livelihoods of food producers, particularly poorer rural people. The authors note that only a limited subset of smallholder producers are likely to be able to escape poverty through growth in their agricultural productivity.

This report from the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute explores how local authorities and non-profits across the UK responded to household food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the period between September 2020 and September 2021. It finds that some existing initiatives were adapted for the pandemic, while other new initiatives emerged.

UK anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe has drawn attention to the disproportionate impact that inflation has on the prices of the cheapest product lines, on which many lower income households rely. Monroe is working to establish a new inflation measure that will track the rising costs of the cheapest supermarket items in the UK.

This short film from the Consumer Council explores the difficulties that low-income households in Northern Ireland face in accessing healthy and affordable food, particularly with the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It features parents, academics and people working in local communities.

This report from the UK’s International Institute for Environment and Development and Dutch development aid organisation Hivos discusses how citizens’ agency (i.e. ability to act freely and make independent choices) can be supported within food systems in the context of a development sector that is often strongly driven by stakeholders from the Global North.

This book uses case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America to argue that, in the right circumstances, home gardens can help to supply people with food and income. It explores how home gardening relates to gender, food security, resilience and poverty alleviation.

This discussion paper by the international Food and Land Use Coalition sets out a framework for understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It finds that the cost of a basic food basket has increased during the first quarter of 2020 by over 10% in nine SSA countries and by 5-10% in eight other SSA countries.

The international initiative Foresight4Food is offering several online resources on COVID-19, food systems and rural poverty.