ABSTRACT
We have learned many lessons about gender, food, and agriculture during COVID-19. Relying on an industrial global system for food security is precarious in times of crisis. People who experienced food insecurity before the pandemic were most vulnerable when the pandemic hit. Intersectional inequalities prevailed across all circumstances and countries. Farmworkers, food processing workers, grocery store workers, and restaurant workers emerged as both essential and vulnerable. Future research needs include the need for expanded work on the forms and precarity of women’s labor under a variety of circumstance, particularly on the ubiquity of women’s care work and its many manifestations in the home, in the community, and even in the labor market. The pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities, highlighting points of unequal access to resources, distribution of responsibilities within households and communities, as well as discriminatory practices embedded within healthcare, employment, and justice systems, impacting our food system. While the impact of the pandemic has been and continues to be devastating, it presents an opportunity to collectively address these inequities and make real change.
