Background and Objective

Empty shelves and shortages in the food supply at the beginning of the Corona pandemic gave an initial impression of abruptly developing dynamics in crisis situations. Far more serious are likely to be the effects on food supply stability in the event of severe crises that bring public life to a virtual standstill, triggered by prolonged widespread power outages, a nuclear accident or even a military conflict.

Although the Food Security and Prevention Act (ESVG) formally regulates responsibilities and procedures for ensuring the basic supply of food to the population in a supply crisis, it remains unclear which governmental authorities are responsible for the provision of food in the event of a crisis. However, it remains unclear what governmental challenges are present in different crisis situations and what specific responses different crises require in terms of their duration, severity and regional affectedness.

Against this background, solutions and proposals for managing crisis-related disruptions to maintain an adequate and immediately available national supply of food for the population will be developed.

Approach

• Analysis of the current production, storage and distribution of food in Germany.
• Evaluation of the scientific literature and the legal framework at the federal and state level for ensuring the basic supply of food to the population during a supply crisis
• Analysis and evaluation of the effects of disruptions and crises
• Derivation of crisis situations and their possible effects on the supply situation with food and feed in close cooperation with other institutions in the area of the BMEL (in particular FLI and BfR) and relevant scientists
• Technical and conceptual derivation of proposals for securing the supply of food in crisis situations.

Our Research Questions

How can the maintenance of a sufficient and immediately available national supply of food for the population be ensured in the event of a severe crisis?

Preliminary Results

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