Basic income is the solution to food insecurity.Ottawa—A national food policy will be a post-pandemic priority for all levels of government and it should include adding value to Canadian products, says Mike von Massow of the University of Guelph.At the same time, governments must address food security in terms of income and not just availability of products in stores, he said in a webinar organized by the Arrell Food Institute and the Food for Thought Institute. Von Massow is the OAC Chair in Food Systems Leadership and an associate professor in Food Agricultural and Resource Economics.The federal government has promised a national food policy and should include “finding ways to add more value to our agricultural products here in Canada rather than shipping raw ingredients out and importing processed products back not only gives us some risk reduction in terms of emergency preparedness, but frankly creates economic activity in this country that we can use.Enhancing our food processing capacity “will be a wonderful outcome” of the pandemic, he said. “While we can't plan and anticipate everything, Canada still needs to adopt much more proactive planning relating to the food system.”It has to be remembered “that our food supply chains have shown some actually pretty spectacular robustness and resilience in the face of an unprecedented shock. While there were some product shortages, they were demand rather than supply-based,” he said. “We're continuing to see the system catch up and we're continuing to see some stock at least come onto the shelves and to me that's a profoundly good news story; that while the system bent, it didn't break.”While Canadians can have significant confidence in our food system, there are pinch points in the food supply chains, he said. Processing really becomes a pinch point because of the small number of plants.“If in the unfortunate circumstance where an individual farmer may get sick or have some other interruption, we've got a large pool of farmers who will continue to supply. At the grocery level most communities, although not all communities, have several store options and so if we had trouble with one store, we would continue to have access. But at the processing level, we have considerably more concentration [of businesses] and that's where we might potentially run into issues.“In fact, if processing plants close it probably hurts producers more than it hurts consumers because it's much easier to reallocate processed products than it is to reallocate the raw products and so, at least in the context of beef, we probably won't be throwing beef out. We may be feeding cattle at lower rates to sustain rather than then grow in order to allow us to wait until that processing capacity comes back. But I expect product will flow across North America so we will continue to see beef and other livestock products, and in fact all food products, on the shelves in the grocery store.”The issue becomes how to similar risks going forward, he said. When the pandemic is under control, “we will have an opportunity to look back and say where were there bumps in the road? And where are there things that we can do differently?”Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.