Five things government can do to encourage local food contingency plans

Severe weather events pose significant risks to food supply chains that are reliant upon critical infrastructures such as road and rail. Can local food procurement arrangements, and contingency plans based on those arrangements, help to ameliorate food shortage in times of crisis? This article explores how governments can empower communities to this end. A broader research project provides the basis of insights and recommendations to aid policy practitioners who seek to develop food-related disaster resilience at the community level. The findings call for the following: the adoption of policies that facilitate the procurement of local food; informing council planning; facilitating shared control with those who want these changes to occur; removing the barriers to change; and utilising a suite of consultation and engagement policies to these ends. It is argued that the Australian regional context of South-East Queensland, with its inherent issues of rapid population growth, has immediate relevance to international contexts.