Università Roma Tre

The seminar aims to analyze some emerging food safety initiatives at the local level. The global crisis triggered by Covid-19 enters into a double relationship with the concept of food security. The origin of this virus seems to be linked to how agri-food production takes place. The emphasis is on intensive farming, deforestation, erosion and contamination of soils and natural resources, hunting and trading in wild animals; but also on the hygienic-sanitary conditions linked to the production process and how food is processed (i.e. "wet markets" case ). Covid-19, for instance, appears to arise from weak and unsustainable food systems and appears to have imposed a forced slowdown on an overheating society (Eriksen, 2017). At the same time, the spread of the virus had a boomerang effect on the food system that somehow generated it. The measures put in place to limit their transmission have had an impact on the food system: failure to supply some goods; price increase; increase in the number of people who, no longer receiving a salary, or receiving it in a reduced form, do not enjoy safe and guaranteed access to goods on the market. The instability of the food system has, therefore, translated into social instability. In a moment of global emergency, the crucial role of public policies for a social safety net, but also of bonds of solidarity, is increasingly evident (Fraser, 1989; Tiryakian, 2009). We are witnessing the flourishing of civil society initiatives that not only highlights the different unfolding of social inequalities but also offer alternatives to address them (Burawoy, 2015) through a new notion of solidarity.