Royal Welsh Show Webinar featuring Prof Bob Doherty

News | Posted on Thursday 23 July 2020

Listen to the recording of the Royal Welsh Show webinar featuring YESI Sustainable Food Co-Lead Professor Bob Doherty. He considered what COVID-19 has taught us about food supply chains and production.

Depot Food Trucks

Professor Bob Doherty was one of the speakers taking part in the Royal Welsh Show webinar 'Food Supply Chains and Production - Global Outlook with a Local Strategy: What has Covid-19 Taught us?' The webinar explores the lessons that the pandemic has taught us, discusses what measures need to be put in place to safeguard food producers and consumers and examines if local strategies with a global outlook are the key to food security.

Covid-19 hit all sectors of life and was met with panic buying and empty supermarket shelves. However, it wasn’ t luxury items that the general public rushed to get their hands on but the essentials like food.

The FUW has long stressed that food security is an issue that needs urgent attention and the last few months have served to illustrate such concerns.

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on food producers and the dangers of trade and rural support policies which undermine UK food security have now starkly come to the fore.

The measures put in place by the UK Government to prevent coronavirus transmission caused a seismic shift in how UK and EU supply chains function and has seen drastic falls in farmgate prices across agricultural sectors.

Prof Doherty considers what COVID-19 has taught us about food supply chains and production.

Access the webinar here.