This research forms part of a suite of work funded by Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research’s (ACIAR) three-stage ‘Rapid Assessment’ initiative, aimed at increasing our understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems in the Indo-Pacific region.
Previous ACIAR research identified that COVID-19 impacts are not evenly distributed across social and economic strata, and that dramatic impacts to food security and livelihoods have already occurred as a result of emergency responses enacted by state and nonstate actors to tackle the public health imperative, including the closure of many local markets that threaten to increase food prices and drive social unrest. This project will contribute to knowledge and understanding of the impact of the pandemic on wet markets and the communities reliant on them.
A meat vendor tends to a buyer at the wet section of the Burgos Public Market in Bacolod City, Philippines on Monday, 12 October 2020. Photo by Rodney A. Jarder, via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0
The goal of this rapid assessment project is to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted wet markets in Vietnam, Kenya and the Philippines, specifically on biosecurity reforms and policies.
The project uses a rapid ethnographic assessment approach. This is a team-based, multi-method, relatively low-cost approach to data collection that relies on methods like interviews, focus groups, mapping, observations and brief surveys. This methodology produces rich understandings of social, economic and policy factors that contribute to the root causes of emerging situations in a variety of contexts, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project involves a series of phases, drawing on the local networks and knowledge of three research co-investigators based in Vietnam, the Philippines, and Kenya:
The aims and outcomes of the project include:
This project is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
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RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.
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