Covid-19: The Food Dimension.

The Food Programme

BBC

Food, Arts

4.4 • 977 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dan Saladino tracks the origins and impact of coronavirus within the global food supply chain. Where are pressures being felt and who's making decisions about feeding Britain? The spead of Covid-19 around the world isn't just proving to be a challenge for public health and economies, it is also proving to be one of the biggest tests faced by the global food system.

With around fifty per cent of the UK's food supplies coming from overseas and our dependence on a complex and interconnected food system Dan investigates where the pressures are being exerted and how the government and retailers are responding. Concerns are growing for food banks, charities dependent on surplus food and the most vulnerable in society.

Dan also hears from people who have had to feed themselves during the lockdowns in China and Italy. He also speaks to Professor Andrew Cunningham, an expert in zoonotic diseases, about the origins of coronavirus within the food supply chain.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the
0:03.8	podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.
0:08.6	It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.
0:15.3	What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism
0:19.8	and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.
0:23.7	And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject
0:28.4	you might not even have thought you were interested in.
0:30.2	Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,
0:36.1	you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.
0:39.7	On the surface, so much appears normal.
0:45.0	Coffee shops are open, so a restaurant and bars.
0:49.0	Most shelves and most supermarkets are full. But we all know the world is rapidly
0:57.5	departing from the norm.
1:01.3	A way of living, one we have taken for granted for decades, is temporarily coming to a halt.
1:08.7	The world is slowly closing down.
1:11.2	Around the world, governments are imposing more draconian measures to try to limit the spread of coronavirus.
1:17.0	Who knows when normal service will be resumed. At this point, the world clearly taking a pause from ordinariness it may last a while.
1:26.8	This isn't just a test for public health and public finances this will also be one of the biggest challenges faced by the world's food
1:35.7	system. A complex and globalized network, we in the UK, are particularly dependent on. I describe it as a web of rubber bands all of
1:46.2	which have been made to stretch further and further get more efficient and if one
1:50.6	goes and another goes it go br go, and it's all collapsed.
1:55.0	Welcome to the Food Program,
	...

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