Working towards food system resilience

Food insecurity and the challenges of the food supply chain have been in the spotlight in 2020, particularly the impacts in relation to COVID-19.

Director of PT Indofood Sukses Makmur Tbk, Axton Salim, who is also Co-Chair of Global Advisory Lead Group of Scaling Up Nutrition (“SUN”) Business Network, took part in a webinar on these issues on 30 July 2020, hosted by the International Life Sciences Institute (“ILSI”).

In the seminar, he talked about:

- Food accessibility is a form of security in times of crisis and pandemic.

- The basic food safety management system, good hygienic practices, good manufacturing practices are now the necessity, and we are challenged to review all general protocols and procedures.

- Manufacturing is only one small part of a complex network of people and activities in getting food from farm to plate. It involves factors such as food supply chains, food environments, individual factors, consumer behaviours with external influences such as climate change, globalisation and trade, urbanisation, politics, and geography.

- The immediate problem and challenges from social distancing is mobility. This is where there is a discrepancy in accessibility of food between the urban and rural, and between the social classes.

- Technology has played an important role for Indonesians in the past years. Connectivity to the internet, varies from 4G in the metropolitan areas like Jakarta, to 2G in the outer islands like Papua. These factors create discrepancies, in issues of accessibility, price and affordability, and variety in pricing of various foods.

- The COVID 19 pandemic will undermine nutrition across the world, in particular the low-income and middle-income countries. New estimates suggest that without timely action, the global prevalence of child stunting could rise by 14.3%. Pre-Covid, there are already 47 million children under 5 who are affected by stunting globally, so this would translate to an additional 6.7 million malnourished and stunted children during the first 12 months of the pandemic.

Salim also cited initiatives to support food system resilience under the umbrella of the SUN Business Network. These interventions include continuing food fortifications, workplace nutrition and the newborns’ first 1,000 days’ program. The food industry also plays an important educative role through integrated health messaging and healthy lifestyle digital platforms.

ILSI is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide science that improves human health, wellbeing and safeguards the environment. <<