*Review of Food Access in the Shade of Critical Times DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107041*

lockdowns and remote working [17]. Spain took similar restrictions with the world and declared a state of emergency on March 14, 2020 [17]. In Spain and Italy, the pandemic restrictions encouraged people to adopt healthier diets [17]. In Spain, people were experiencing food shortages in stores by 64%. Then pandemic people started stockpiling nonperishable food items and buying extra items every trip to avoid the shortage [17]. In turn, it caused a change to buy food from local farms and organic sources [17]. In Spain, younger people less than 40 years of age increased their food consumption more than people over 40 and 50 years old during the pandemic [17]. In Germany, Denmark, and Slovenia, people consumed longer shelf life food and less fresh food. In the United States, because of the pandemic, people changed their food source and where they eat. Since the beginning of the pandemic to January 2021, the United States had more than 21 million infection cases and 350,000 deaths, which count as 20% of the global total cases. Since the pandemic onset, the unemployment rate increased to 7.9% in September 2020, a level not seen since the Great Depression. By December, 14% of adults were not having enough food across the United States.

Before the pandemic in 2017, three Arab countries were importing 100% of their cereals, namely Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates at 99% [50]. Moreover, seven Arab countries import approximately 90% of their grains, namely Jordan, Amman, Palestine, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Lebanon [50]. Algeria is also at high risk of food crisis depending on importing 79% of its grains [50]. Countries like Tunisia, Mauritania, and Iraq import more than 55% of their grains. Egypt imports 44% of its [50]. The least dependent Arab countries are importing 40–33% of their grain in Morocco and Sudan [50]. In Algeria, products like semolina, flour, dry grains, and pasta became unavailable because of the demand increase and that led to prices increase, and the government took the lead to secure food sources and control monopoly and speculation [50].

The responses to the current pandemic may change the environment, and it is an opportunity to create a multidisciplinary solution for human livelihood and future generations. The Avian Influenza (H5N1) pandemic in 1997 in Hong Kong led them to create "One Health" to predict, control, and minimize future outbreaks [51]. The One Health is a multidisciplinary work in local, national, and global stakeholders [51]. Some considerations to lower the pandemic effect on different regions such as Africa: 1—develop the health system capacity by the public fund in Africa; 2—financial aid needs to be distributed among individuals, entrepreneurs, and corporations, so they contribute to lowering the negative impact of the pandemic; 3—during the pandemic and lockdowns, employees should be given incentives and; 4—central banks in African countries need to support domestic banks to save credit and liquidity. One of the consequences of COVID-19 in Africa is putting approximately 29 million people under the extreme poverty line as expected by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Because of the land use change and more human interaction with animals and the environment, more transmittable diseases are emerging. Changes in climate and people activities and land use changes cause habitat disruption and lead to pathogen movement [47]. Emerging infectious diseases (MIDs) are increasing with climate change and make a dangerous nexus. These diseases are increasing the food cost and lowering production which limits access to food. By 2030, poor counties are expected to import their food by 2%. Support from the framework is needed for these accruing matters. A framework called Document Assess Monitor Act (DAMA) is applied to deal with these issues.


Following are the important issues recommended in the pandemic era:


Future recommended actions to deal with future pandemics are given as follows [52]:

