The Pandemic and Food Insecurity in Small Cities of the Global South: A Case Study of Noapara in Bangladesh

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed fault lines in food systems in a small city in Bangladesh. It identifies specific challenges in smaller cities that lack the resources of larger ones to deal with challenges such as a pandemic. It also looks at the rapid-response research done during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic building on a larger project that was already examining food security and inequalities. The chapter delineates the challenges imposed by COVID-19 on food security in Noapara and identifies associated coping mechanisms undertaken by affected residents. It describes Noapara as a thriving city that has a national transportation road bisecting the city and railway that links the city to the rest of Bangladesh.