10. #Foodsecurity: is Europe ready to face the next crises?

From day one of the Covid pandemic, the strength of Europe’s food supply lines and delivery systems were tested to the full. At the beginning there were occasional instances of panic buying, but as fears of shortages evaporated these fizzled out. There were moments too where individual member states abandoned the principle of collective action and took matters into their own hands to protect their populations. But ooverall, established supply chains worked well and the trucks kept on rolling. Now, eighteen months on, and after an evaluation of delivery performance, EU leaders have made food security contingency plans in the event of new natural and man-made crises. This tenth episode of Food for Europe looks at the issues at play in creating a plan fit for all events. Like the effects of climate change, cyberattack, earthquake, volcano, crop failure or nuclear accident. The podcast is a journey through a series of questions asking what lessons are to be learned from what went right…and wrong…during the pandemic. How a “first responder” Contingency Forum, involving also European nations outside the EU, might work. How to build resilience and trust in the face of crises. Our guests in this episode include Michael Scannell, Deputy Director General at DG Agri, David Horobin, a seasoned expert in crisis management for several international organisations, and Valentina Zanetti, an Italian dairy farmer and cheese producer who weathered the many storms that Covid brought with it.