COVID-19 and the response of Ethiopian rural food systems

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In Ethiopia, COVID-19 and the efforts to curb the spread of the pandemic have had severe economic and social consequences, including disruption of agro-food supply chains, disturbance of rural-urban relations, shrinking cross border trade, and growing pressures on vulnerable groups both in rural and urban areas. Food systems are key for understanding the impact of the crisis, and for identifying the transformative potentials of rural and urban segments of Ethiopian society.This project focuses on rural households and their relations with urban actors, while its companion project focuses on urban food system and actors. The aim of this project is to assess the response of Ethiopian rural food systems to the crisis throughout the various stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project starts from the premise that understanding the response of regional food systems to sudden disruptive shocks requires a closer look at social capital, hidden vulnerabilities and intersectional relations within households and local communities. Research builds upon a previous study by the same team in the same area, which had applied a water-energy-food nexus approach to investigate rural transformations. By using the available household data and contacts from this previous study, the new project will be able to apply “Corona-proof” methods, and to evaluate ongoing changes with only limited personal encounters. Research methods will primarily consist in telephone interviews with local households, intermediaries, and experts, together with photo-voice tools and other qualitative methods. Research objectives and work packages concern (1) household assets and wellbeing, (2) social capital and market relations in the community context, (3) changing state-society relations in the regional institutional context, and (4) gender and intersectional relations in cross-cutting contexts. These four mutually related fields will be investigated to identify the impact of the current crisis on local livelihoods and food systems. The design of this project and its fast-tracked results ensure that critical knowledge is created and delivered to local actors during the pandemic.