Pandemic Response Reinforcement Resilience

Adapting to strengthen resilience in the food system

The pandemic has taught us a lot. Food system nonprofits and businesses are moving quickly, building on assets, and prototyping new ways of doing things. It’s a dynamic moment. The Chicago Region Food System Fund wants to support and accelerate that dynamism as much as possible, both in the grants we make and how we partner to capture learning with a commitment to continual improvement.

Diverse approaches, hopeful future

Some see resilience in the context of climate change. Others see it in the ability to live through and transform trauma. Still others see it as food sovereignty rooted in traditional ecological knowledge as practiced by indigenous communities. Or in locally owned and well-integrated food businesses. No one approach can define and ensure resilience—but together the region’s vibrant web of rural, urban, and peri-urban food communities can build a resilient, racially and economically just future.