THERE is almost nothing more primal than our relationship to food. When we’re under threat, we stock up. We fill our freezers and fridges. Ensuring that we have enough food has been, lately, as much a preoccupation as trying to avoid contact with coronavirus. Food is our first, most basic need. When the shelves of our supermarkets were stripped we took fright. We did so partly because of the news stories about panic-buying, and partly because when bad times come, we don’t want our own cupboards to be bare.

It’s impossible to put that fear, triggered by those images of empty shelves, back in its box. The crisis has made us see our food system differently. Our “just-in-time” supermarket supply, which once looked abundant and invisibly renewing, suddenly appeared fragile. We’ve been reminded that our food comes from somewhere, is grown by some people, processed by others, and delivered by still others.

Check-out workers, shelf-stackers, delivery workers, have all become heroes – their “essential” role in a system that feeds us suddenly made visible. The packet of pasta we now recognise didn’t get to that shelf by magic.

 

We need a better system than food banks, says Pete Ritchie of Nourish Scotland

 

Headlines declared that we were panic-buying, though analysis showed that it wasn’t really that many of us who were doing huge stockpiling, rather that all of us getting a few more items we wouldn’t regularly buy in. Most of us didn’t really think we were being selfish when we bought those extra packets of pasta – we were just planning for what the Government had advised us we might have to do. We were preparing for the possible need to be in self-isolation for 14 days – and yes, we did really need all those packets of toilet paper, lentils and chocolate to get through.

We needed the vegetable seeds too – which were also flying off the shelves – because some of us were thinking long-term, about food from the land for the future, and the joy of growing things in spring. As the garden centres were forced to close, online seeds and plants suppliers reported a substantial rise in sales. Suttons recorded a 4,000% rise in activity on its site on the previous March. Panic-buying had turned to panic-growing.

Food security is both a private and a public issue. Will there be enough food on the retailers' shelves for everyone? Will it be affordable? Will I be able to access it and pay for it? These are all questions that have troubled many of us since the Covid-related restrictions have started, and people have begun to lose their jobs. Along with them come other questions about the nature of our food system – who it provides for, and who it doesn’t, who profits from it, and who loses out.

But just how worried should we be? Most food security experts do not believe that there is a significant threat to our food supply.

Dr Peter Alexander, lecturer in global food security at the University of Edinburgh, notes that there is cause for “concern, but not panic”. The just-in-time system our food retailers work with is, he says, efficient, but not good at dealing with unpredictable events. “In the UK we did cope pretty well. There were no real fundamental shortages. Toilet roll was a wee bit difficult to get hold of for a week or so. But there was no catastrophic lack of resilience. Arguably the system was pretty resilient.”

Going forwards, he says, the continuity of our food supplies will rely on two things – the continuation of international trade, and the maintaining of UK labour. It’s the issue of trade, however, that worries him, since 50% of our food comes from outside the UK. “It’s not certain that international trade will become a problem, but I think if there were to be a major problem for the UK that’s where it’s going to stem from.”

His chief concern is the possibility that countries which are major exporters start imposing export bans. “If that were to happen then things could become more problematic. There could, as we saw in the 2007 food price spike, be a cascading effect, where one country starts introducing those bans that create more shortages in the market which increases prices and then other countries start introducing our own restrictions. It snowballs.”

One of the things that the current crisis has shown us is how a change in one part of the food system impacts on others. For instance, what caused the shelves to empty wasn’t just stockpiling, it was that it was coinciding with the closure of the service sector – the cafes, restaurants and canteens which supply a third of our food. Demand shifted to retail. Donations to foodbanks dropped at a time when they were needed more, as some were forced to close due to staff shortages. Morrisons declared it would step in and donate £10 million worth of goods.

Soon, too, local food delivery businesses were being assailed by requests. One of the people on the receiving end of these was Pete Ritchie, an organic farmer who is also executive director of campaign group Nourish Scotland. Last week, when his Whitmuir Farm shop opened its delivery website for two hours, it got all the orders they could manage in a week. “We had people phoning up in tears saying ‘I’m in London, can you get something delivered to my mum who is on her own and doesn’t have anyone to go shopping for her?’ It’s just been really shocking to realise how frightened people are.”

The scare has also triggered a second primal reaction – the desire to plant seeds and grow our own food. We suddenly have the urge to be a little more in control of our own food generation and supply. This is partly a survivalist mentality – you stockpile first, and then you plant things to feed yourself in the near future. But it’s also about what makes us feel good. For some it’s part of a desire to connect with nature and the outdoors at a point when we are being forced inside. For others, it’s about trying to take back food sovereignty, in a system in which we can feel so helpless. It’s also spring – the season for planting and looking forwards.

Evie Murray, chief executive of Leith Community Crops in Pots, which runs a community garden, says she has received a sudden onslaught of people enquiring about growing space, at the same time as she has been aware of many more people talking about lack of food and money.

“I’ve noticed just through my own social network, unlikely people are telling me that they’re getting into their garden,” she says. “People who have shunned it in the past are now getting into it.”

The Leith Community Croft, with its communal plots and developing market garden, is, she views, almost a test model of an urban croft which could be rolled out all over Scotland. “We can find many examples of cities around the world that have excelled with regard food production, for example Chicago, which does rooftop gardens, vertical-growing, and community-supported agriculture. These all increase food security and build community resilience. We believe that our vision for our Urban Croft model could make at least an equally important contribution to these things, and set a powerful precedent.”

It’s not surprising to learn that those lucky enough to have private gardens have been entertaining themselves through lockdown by planting and pottering. But there are many other projects like Murray’s which try to make it accessible to all. Greig Robertson is director of Edible Estates, which runs community gardens in deprived areas Craigmillar, Wester Hailes and Broomhouse. At this point in the year his team would normally be trying to lure prospective gardeners out to the gardens, but because of the lockdown that is proving less possible.

Instead, they are now launching a new project, Home Grown, to enable people to have the experience of growing a small amount of their own food on a windowsill, balcony or other small area. Starter packs containing a seed tray, compost and seeds, he says, will be sent out to households who show an interest in the neighbourhoods they already support – but may be available in other areas for a fee.

For him, this isn’t so much about feeding people, but about enabling the community activity and the bonding that comes with gardening. “The urgency for us is that we’re really at the beginning of the growing season now. We’re looking to get this launched next week so we can get working with people by halfway through April. By the time you get to the end of May, you’ve kind of lost the season. We were thinking if we can get folk growing at home, then that’s a bit of activity for them, something to do with the kids if they’ve got them.”

For most of us, in normal times, the idea that we really might not have enough food doesn't enter our heads. But for some that worry is all too familiar. Our foodbanks are testimony to the fact that food poverty has long been a blight on our society. One in 10 people, according to the 2018 Scottish Health Survey, suffer food insecurity.

Pete Ritchie of Nourish Scotland points out that this crisis, which has left so many more people jobless and at risk of food poverty, has reminded us of the need to replace foodbanks with something more workable, that gives greater dignity – one where people are enabled to buy the food they want, rather than given leftovers and donations. “It’s not too much to ask that people in Scotland can afford to eat well,” he says.

“We should be able to provide that in the way we provide universal education and universal healthcare. For relatively small amounts in terms of overall public expenditure we could make that happen. And I think the long-term benefits for our health and wellbeing will be significant. Here’s a chance to say, well, look, can we find a solution that works for everyone and not just the new people who are food insecure, or the older people, but actually everybody in Scotland who is food insecure? Let’s actually tackle that once and for all. It should not be the case that people end up having to go to foodbanks.”

Ritchie is an advocate for having a “right to food”. It’s a principle that looked set to be there in the Good Food Nation Bill that was shelved last week as a result of oronavirus. “If it had been in place, we would be having this conversation in terms of the right for food – and we would say that includes access to healthy and sustainable food, not just any old food.

“And everybody would be thinking about it that way because we would have that right to food idea in our heads. We don’t have it in our heads at the moment, so we just think it’s okay to take surplus foods and give them to poor people and be grateful for it.”

This crisis is reminding us of many things. One of them is how necessary that idea of right to food is. Another is our own vulnerability, as well as that of others. Fear of the empty larder is out there – and we should learn from it.