California Agriculture

The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented spikes in food insecurity. In California, food banks, which were already facing high demand for emergency food assistance, rallied federal, state and local resources to help meet the challenges of the pandemic. Our study draws on interviews with food banks and their partners approximately one year into the pandemic to learn how they responded to enormous challenges in staffing, procurement, distribution and infrastructure. These interviews captured lessons for resilience planning and food security policy that might otherwise have been lost. We found an encouraging story of resilience, and a story of how government agencies and community networks can work together to create and strengthen food security policies, even under the most dire circumstances.