SPECIAL ISSUES

COVID-19 and its associated health policies have dramatically affected food systems and food security in cities around the world. The pandemic has led to increases in levels of vulnerability and has created complexities within urban food systems by worsening household income and chronic and acute hunger, and disrupting food supply chains, which were widespread issues even prior to the pandemic. COVID-19 has exacerbated these issues by affecting vulnerable households in almost every city, and more specifically, the overcrowded cities of the Global South. As the threat of new variants looms, these impacts are expected to persist for the foreseeable future. Our changing food systems, livelihood strategies, and food security experiences remain areas of concern that require more research.

In this Special Issue, we bring together papers that reveal the complexities and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated health policies on urban food security in the Global South. We are seeking empirical research or conceptual/theoretical works which examine key processes and issues including, but not limited to:

• Disruptions to income and livelihood vulnerability in cities;
• Food supply chain disruptions;
• Urban household food access, availability, utilization and stability;
• Social relations of inequality and/or difference such as gender, age, race, class and ethnicity;
• Urban food system governance and resilience;
• Rural-to-urban, urban-to-urban, transboundary, and multiscalar linkages.