Introduction
The current urban food supply system in China has been challenged during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Xinfadi Wholesale Market in the Chinese capital city Beijing, which provided 90% of the city’s vegetables and fruits, has fallen victim to reemergent coronavirus cases in June 2020, and therefore was forced to press “stop” to its wholesale business. The closure of the market also put down many small community shops and outlets around it and left them incapable of running the business, some of which unable to restock and facing shortages of labours as well as customers.
Following the responses from the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau to ensure a normal supply of food, “Vegetable Express” trucks were called upon to distribute fresh produce and logistics used by companies from the Beijing Agricultural Products Association changed their sourcing strategies to look out for the larger share of their goods directly from their suppliers. Suppliers of vegetables and meat were also encouraged to be in direct contact with the local supermarkets, and traders of the Xinfadi market switched from centralized distribution to direct shipping from their supplier to their buyers.
The immediate closure of the market without prior notice to the dealers also caught them in surprise, many of whom had to discard their purchases of stocks of fruits and vegetables worth several million yuan (CNY) as a result of hot weather and contamination of coronavirus, which caused enormous food waste and economic losses. Despite the efforts of ensuring food supply, the detection of coronavirus on the cold-chained products like salmon pushed up an immediate response to withdraw the aquatic products that had undergone cold chain transportation, therefore leaving traders unable to acquire sources of income and the supply chain gravely affected.
The United SDG 12 "Ensure sustainable consumption and productions'', which points out that an estimated one-third of all food produced yearly ends up being dumped by consumers and retailers due to transportation losses and poor harvest practices. Revolved around this theme, this paper raises the following questions: How have the changes in the food supply system modified the urban-rural linkages during the Covid-19 pandemic? And how are these changes influencing consumption and production?
Theoretical outlook
According to the definition of the World Trade Organization, multifunctionality in agriculture encompasses four dimensions: environmental protection, landscape preservation, rural employment and food security. Other than providing food for the residents, agriculture can offer support to the viability of rural development by securing employment and sustaining rural communities and the environment. The perspective of multifunctionality is therefore vital in understanding how agriculture functions as the societal foundation that encourages production, ecological conservation and livelihood of the residents.
Beijing, the capital city of China in which 20 million people reside, is increasingly dependent on food production in the rural areas. The hit of the coronavirus outbreak on the market further proves that farmland carries a gigantic responsibility of food security of the city and serves as the urban-rural linkages. According to Kline and Wichelms, farmland has functions in sustaining environmental and ecological landscape while providing function beyond agriculture, both commercial and noncommercial values of the food. Multifunctionality in agriculture lies in the variety of thematic aspects that rural farmers can support themselves in multiple areas that encompass socio-economic development and sustain themselves in a state of shock and stress.
The Analysis of the changing rural-urban linkages
Due to the reemergent outbreak of coronavirus, the Xinfadi Wholesale Market was closed down and many small community stores that relied on the opening of the market had to find their way out. The government of Beijing designated new areas for the trading of vegetables and fruits in i.e.: parking lots and open-air vacant space, and companies tracked their products directly from suppliers.
In the earlier stage of the pandemic, online sale schemes in combination with e-commerce on social media platforms like WeChat, TikTok also enabled the farmers to directly reach out to their target customers. This phenomenon showcased that due to the pandemic restrictions, the market has seen an opportunity to transform its marketing strategy by shortening the supply chain, incorporating information and communication technologies (ICTS) as a matching medium between sellers and buyers to reduce the food decays.
The wholesale market in this case reflects what could be improved in the context of developing a healthier urban food system. It touches upon not only the food system but also the rural socio-economic landscape that highly depends on the input of labour and innovative marketing approaches and sale strategies. This reflects on the long-standing but overlooked deficiency of urban food supply systems in Beijing, in which food production is in most cases untraceable and falls vulnerable in front of food security crises.
In August 2020 followed by the resume of the wholesale business in Xinfadi, new strategies of management and schemes required that the registration of sellers and buyers to the system and membership-based sale business was implemented as a way to enable traceability of the product. Their measures were hoping to substantiate the multilevel monitoring of the wholesales business to ensure food security as well as serve as the preventive measures against coronavirus.
As the emerging sellers-to-buyers approach demonstrated its multifunctionality in social, economic and environmental impact, it is worth considering expanding the urban food supply market with more accessible pathways for the sales of produce. The market should also welcome the produce of community-based agriculture, permaculture, food co-operatives and other forms of rural agricultural approaches to encourage the multifunctional realization of the conventional agricultural practice as well as the revitalization of the rural economy.
The current divorce between city dwellers and agricultural production has long existed and this temporary closure of the wholesale market also challenge politicians as well as the general public to re-evaluate their relationship with the soil and food. Innovative initiatives like community-based agriculture gained steady grounds and have managed to hold themselves up during the pandemic. The short and reliable supply chain and the sourceable produce based on the risk-sharing mechanisms also makes it easier to trace back to the food once there might arise any concerns among buyers.
As the SDGs claims that sustainable production and consumption is the core to ensuring sustainable rural communities and their development, the multifunctionality of agriculture should be drawn attention and open up a new window of opportunities for enhancing sustainable urban-rural linkages. To strengthen the preventive measures against the further development of pandemic as well as improve on the market structure and minimize the stress and shock faced by the local farmers, the market should consider investing in diversification of the distribution models through more digitalized platforms. The promotion of purchasing local food will also strengthen the linkages between urban demand and rural productions and contribute to a more robust food system.
Conclusion
The challenges of the agricultural sector in delivering food to the urban dwellers have undergone severe issues as the concentrated wholesales business, making it difficult to track the source of the produce. The emergence of issues also shed light on the transformation of the food supply chain in the urban settings, incentivizing the food market to incorporate the latest updated and innovative approaches to realize sellers-to-buyers marketing mechanisms, to minimize the waste of produce that occurs in the food supply chain. This not only strengthens the cooperation between urban and rural sectors in agriculture but also brings in new hope of better facilitating the integration of rural development and ensuring agriculture to flourish in a multifunctional context that benefits social, economic and ecological environments.
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This paper was written in April 2021, as part of the course assignment during my Master's education to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban-rural linkages and its attainment to sustainable development.
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