The Local and Regional Food Systems Resilience Playbook

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the many ways people working in communities and governments are developing comprehensive approaches to preparing, responding, and recovering from disaster and disruption. This playbook captures some, but certainly not all, of these approaches to provide guidance to future food systems leaders for when similar disruptions inevitably occur. The COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing climate crises show us that disruptions are inherently unpredictable and affect each community differently. Therefore,  a top down, prescriptive approach to disaster preparedness for local food systems won’t work. It’s also critical to understand how systemic injustice impacts people’s ability to prepare, respond, and manage disruptions in the food system. Addressing inequity is a key aspect of disaster preparedness and response, but also a core component of building vibrant, robust, and equitable food systems.  

Throughout this playbook, the term resilience is used because it communicates that the strengths and vulnerabilities of communities change across time and place. The term resilience is often associated with examples of individuals and communities persisting through adversity. The project team recognizes that the term can also normalize and perpetuate the conditions that create inequality and adversity in the first place.    

This section and the brief linked below outline the playbook’s approach to and understanding of resilience as a concept, emphasizing the process of achieving and maintaining resilience of any system (food system, educational system, ecosystem, etc.). Understanding resilience as a dynamic, relational, and evolving process, and not something to “achieve” allows us to focus on a learning process, rather than a destination.

The processes necessary for fostering resilience look different for every community and change over time. No single program, policy or model will work everywhere all the time. However, systems are strongest when their resources, connections, and information are readily accessible by everyone impacted by them, and all needs of all people are met. Therefore, connecting with stakeholders across multiple sectors, organizations, and places to amplify expertise and resources is fundamental to quick problem solving, adaptation, and other resilience processes.   

Within disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts, it is nearly impossible to ensure everyone is included. Therefore, success is measured by doing the best work, for the most vulnerable people within your existing networks. This includes intentionally doing work outside of times of crisis to build inclusive and community centered networks and relationships.  

While comprehensive, the framework for equitable resilience employed in this Playbook is not designed to provide specified guidance or geographic nuance to specific stakeholders. It doesn’t provide a one-size-fits-all model or an all-encompassing checklist for becoming a resilient community. Rather, it is a tool to help situate yourself within your local and regional food system and form relationships with the diverse stakeholders that reflect your geographic context, scale, and community dynamics. It summarizes best practices from across the nation that people working on the ground have developed in the midst of emergencies.  The playbook reflects the best of what local and regional food systems across the country are capable of in times of need in the hope that future food systems leaders will not have to “reinvent the wheel” when they face similar disruptions.  

This Playbook raises practical guidance and experiences from on-the-ground actors with big picture assessments of how Local and Regional Food Systems (LRFS) are uniquely impacted and positioned to respond in times of disruption. It also covers how LRFS can continue to organize and engage in processes that foster equity and resilience between disruptions to minimize the need for vulnerable communities to bear the brunt of the negative impact. Case studies, interviews, worksheets, and other materials ground this work in what LRFS stakeholders think and believe, and how those thoughts, values and frameworks are translated into day-to-day action.

The food systems disruptions and breakdowns seen during the COVID-19 pandemic brought vulnerability of consolidated systems to the forefront. There are many lessons that LRFS can teach about resilience in action through local and regional food systems that are diffuse, diverse, adaptive, and redundant.   

Rather than swinging between a focus on maximizing market efficiency in ‘good times,’ and command and control approaches in ‘bad times’ – this approach sees the three dimensions of preparedness, response, and recovery as ongoing and interlinked. This playbook considers the question, “How can LRFS be organized in a way that acknowledges and accounts for the inevitability of disruption, attends to underlying vulnerabilities and structural injustices, and guides strategic investments of time, money, and social capital to realize a shared vision?” 

A singular focus on maintaining markets will not resolve every underlying vulnerability; nor will a singular focus on charity-model emergency response. Communities across the country have proven their extraordinary capacity to care for themselves when given the opportunity and freedom to do so. Local and regional farms and food businesses provide invaluable support to their communities in times of disruption precisely because they’re dynamic, adaptive, and relational. 

Keep scrolling to learn about seven key practices and principles you can take to establish equitable and resilient food systems.

The LRFS Impacts & Innovations Guide is designed to support a systems-based understanding of how market sectors and local and regional food systems (LRFS) stakeholders adapt during times of disruption.

This guide outlines the different sectors within a local or regional food system and provides insights into the types of impacts and adaptations observed within those sectors during times of disruption. It also highlights innovations and adaptations taken that demonstrate resilience in action. While each sector experiences distinct impacts and implements sector-specific adaptations, the tenets and pillars of equitable resilience support coordination and creative problem-solving at a systems level.

We know that producers, consumers, and other food systems stakeholders navigate multiple channels and sectors simultaneously. A farmer may sell at a farmers market and to a local school, then pivot to supply a food bank during a time of disruption. In addition to shifts in market channels, producers also contend with disruptions in processing or distribution, and policies impacting access to markets and financial resources. These types of multiple and simultaneous market considerations are why a systems-based understanding of LRFS is invaluable in navigating disruption and fostering resilience.

This guide is not a comprehensive list of impacts and responses to LRFS disruptions. Rather, by linking to case studies, videos, and web-based resources, it provides a quick overview of the breadth of LRFS impacts and approaches to response explored in The Playbook and uplifts relationships that support equitable resilience. The rest of The Playbook explores in greater depth each of the three key pillars of LRFS resilience in times of disruption.