Resilience of local food distribution in times of wars and conflicts

Across the world, geopolitical tensions, wars and armed conflicts choke off food and fuel supplies, crumble currencies and drive up food bills. Daily life becomes a struggle for millions of people as food and other daily essentials become increasingly unattainable. Yet amid this fragility, we witness the resilience and the vital role played by community-based food distribution such as fresh markets and street vendors. For people living in conflict zones, the informal economy has long served as a lifeline, the primary source of both food and livelihood.

Even as formal distribution supply chains and market infrastructures buckle under the strain of war, these local systems frequently persist, though violence reshapes the conditions under which they operate and the ways in which they function. Such crises often give rise to alternative economic structures for securing basic necessities, particularly food, encouraging a shift toward localised distribution networks while diminishing reliance on global trade.

In the midst of the violent Israeli attacks in Lebanon, a mouneh (preserves) producer from the Beqaa Valley, sends food baskets to displaced communities in the South of Lebanon. Each basket is carefully selected with a mix of eggs, bread, loquat, lemons, olive oil, keshek (fermented food made from yoghurt and cracked wheat), za'atar (thyme), and other essential products to ensure displaced communities could still receive proper nutritional intake.

Across Palestine, women have spent decades running farming cooperatives and growing victory gardens on rooftops. The vegetables planted and dairy cows raised not only sustain their families and communities but also contribute to the political actions against the Israeli occupation. In the street of Karachi, Pakistan, food vendors adapted to recurrent transport disruptions caused by strikes by using bicycles and other community-based delivery systems to maintain food distribution. Meanwhile, in Sudan, as the civil war ruined formal markets, communities built barter economies where essential goods such as okra, beans, sorghum, kisra, and soap are traded weekly without the need for cash. Elsewhere, even in cities devastated by war, vendor-led temporary markets have sprung up despite lack of electricity, storage facilities or reliable scales.

Such actions, in contrast to volatile global market chains, demonstrate the power and resilience of equitable food systems that are less vulnerable to geopolitical shocks, offering residents hope for rebuilding their lives from rubble.

In this edition of the Supermarket Bulletin, we share experiences from street vendors in Ukraine, the community kitchen in Sudan and small farmers in Myanmar that have shown their resilience in sustaining food supplies for their communities in the midst of ongoing wars and conflict.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been in the midst of one of the world’s most severe food crises. The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has destroyed local markets, disrupted supply chains, and displaced millions of people. By the end of 2024, nearly 24.6 million people were facing acute food insecurity—almost half of the population surveyed. When markets collapse, commercial distribution chains cease to function, and international aid struggles to reach affected areas, who feeds the people?

In Sudan, the answer came from the communities themselves.

The Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) trace their origins to the Resistance Committees that organised the 2018–2019 revolution. Faced with war, these activist networks redirected their efforts toward emergency food assistance. By 2025, the ERRs comprised approximately 737 local organisations across the country’s eighteen states, mobilising nearly 26,000 volunteers. By the end of 2024, they had provided direct assistance to more than 11.5 million people in areas where no supermarkets, major retail chains, or commercial operators were still in operation.

Their most iconic initiative: the takaya, or community kitchens, inspired by the Sudanese tradition of collective solidarity (nafeer). These kitchens prepare and distribute meals daily to displaced people, families without income, the elderly, and the most vulnerable. They operated initially thanks to contributions from local residents and support from the Sudanese diaspora, however, after demonstrating their effectiveness on the ground, their funding became increasingly dependent on international institutional donors as a second pillar – in particular USAID.

What sets them radically apart from the commercial distribution systems that typically dominate access to food is their fundamental logic: food is not treated as a commodity whose access depends on purchasing power. It is treated as a common good, whose distribution is based on the collective recognition of a shared responsibility toward every member of the community. No prices, no profit margins, no profit-seeking middlemen: just organised solidarity.

Women carry out the bulk of this work – preparing meals, managing supplies, organising distribution, and supporting vulnerable families. A cruel paradox: households headed by women are nearly three times more likely to face food insecurity than those headed by men. Yet it is these women who keep the social fabric alive where commercial networks have disappeared. The emergence of Women’s Response Rooms – structures created to address the specific needs of women and children in terms of food, protection, and psychosocial support –highlights a reality that dominant food systems systematically obscure: food distribution relies on largely invisible social reproduction work, carried out mostly by women, the value of which never appears in any supermarket balance sheet.

Despite their effectiveness, these initiatives remain structurally vulnerable, and therein lies the most striking contradiction. By March 2025, nearly 80% of emergency community kitchens had closed as a result of cuts in international funding which the diaspora and local contributions couldn`t compensate for. Decisions made in distant offices were enough to cut off the sole source of food for millions of people. Communities that had managed – without resources and under bombardment – to build what markets and states had failed to provide found themselves dependent on the very same logic of external funding that they were specifically trying to circumvent.

Sudanese community kitchens thus raise a question that goes far beyond the context of the conflict: Who is in charge of food distribution? Is it the large retail chains that concentrate purchasing power, set prices, and decide what is available, where, and for whom? Or is it the communities themselves, who know their own needs, resources, and networks of solidarity? The experience of the takaya shows that an alternative distribution system is possible – one based on local knowledge, women’s participation, and the principle of the common good rather than profit. Directly funding these organisational capacities means choosing food justice over the concentration of distribution power. Ultimately, it is a political choice.

Sudanese community kitchens are not merely a survival mechanism in the face of war. They demonstrate that grassroots communities can create their own institutions when state and market structures no longer meet basic needs. In this sense, they represent not only a humanitarian response but also an experiment in food governance built on the local context and the needs of the people themselves.

By Souad Mahmoud, Alliance for Food Sovereignty – MENA (ASA-MENA)

The original article was written in French

Ukraine has been undergoing a full-scale invasion from Russia since February 2022. The violence of the war has been extremely disruptive for food value chains, among other infrastructure. In this context, trade unions and representatives of street and market vendors have found ways to keep the supply chains going, leveraging their flexibility and knowledge of the local territory. The support of trade unions has been a key factor during the war, to support workers and provide critical humanitarian aid. Below, Nataliya Levytska, deputy chairperson of the Confederation of the Free Trade Union of Ukraine, shares her organisation’s experience.

“During the first weeks following Russia's full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, many supermarkets and distribution centres were forced to close because of active hostilities, destruction of infrastructure, or the inability to deliver goods. By the end of March 2022, approximately 21% of grocery stores were not operating, although major retail chains gradually resumed operations in the following months. Unlike large retail chains that rely on centralised logistics and distribution centres, small traders are able to adapt rapidly by using informal wholesale networks and personal business relationships. Many source products directly from farmers, local food processors, small warehouses, or trusted contacts in other regions, allowing them to bypass disrupted supply channels.

The shorter supply chains contribute to the availability of food: essential goods such as vegetables, milk or bread can be bought directly from local farmers. Local routes have remained accessible even when logistical hubs have been disrupted by military operations.

Small entrepreneurs have also been able to adjust their product range quickly, selling whatever goods have been physically available rather than maintaining the standardised assortment required by large supermarket chains. Many are relying on their own vehicles or informal transport networks to collect and distribute products, enabling them to overcome logistical bottlenecks more effectively than larger retailers.

Vendors have been coordinating with local authorities and communities to maintain the flow of food to cities under siege or that had been recently liberated.

The Free Trade Union of Entrepreneurs of Ukraine started its humanitarian aid activities with the support of colleagues across the world. The union handed food kits and helped evacuate people fleeing frontline regions.

Markets have not been spared from this war. Workplaces of vendors and entrepreneurs became targets for Russian forces. Barabashovo Market in Kharkiv was one of the largest markets in Eastern Europe. Since 2022, due to targeted enemy shelling and fires, most of the trading pavilions of this open market complex have been completely destroyed. The members of the Free Trade Union of Entrepreneurs of Ukraine lost their workplaces there. The destruction has continued until very recently. On May 25, 2026 it was Lukyanivskyi Market (Kyiv) that was hit. In June 2026 a Russian attack destroyed most of the trading rows of the Pochaina Book Market (Kyiv). The trading floor and the adjacent Kvadrat shopping center were also critically damaged by a missile strike that same month.

Vendors and informal traders do not have protection and shelters against shellings and usually have no other source of income, therefore they are forced to continue selling even under the most extreme conditions. The psychological toll has been enormous, too: the stress of the economic uncertainty compounded with the constant physical danger.

Resilience has been the result of the cooperation between formal and informal sectors, local communities, and volunteers. And of course, workers’ organisations.

Trade unions have focused primarily on protecting the labour rights of workers employed in the retail sector, providing humanitarian assistance to their members, supporting internally displaced workers, and mobilising international solidarity and humanitarian aid” concludes Levytska. “While they have played a less direct role in organising market trading itself, trade unions have contributed to maintaining the resilience of workers and communities affected by the war.”

Leonid Tonkovyd, deputy head of the FTUEU (Free Trade Union of Entrepreneurs of Ukraine), StreetNet’s affiliate in the country, also shared his experience from the frontlines. “The efforts of small traders and trade unions to deliver food to frontline areas and occupied territories are associated with extreme risks. Examples like these happen all over the country. While on a food delivery mission, the head of the FTUEU, Valentyna Korobka, was injured by an explosion. In the Kherson region, volunteers were shot while delivering bread. In Cherihiv a local vendor continued to supply meat to various villages, doing so at great personal risk even in the face of the violence of the occupation.”

By StreetNet

Five years after the military coup and ongoing civil war, Myanmar held its election in early 2026. This long delayed election however does not mean that the country and the people have found stability.

V-Farm* is a small agroecological farm in Tikki Township, located in the rural region of northern Yangon. Established in 2017, the farm joined a network of organic farms operating under a local participatory guarantee system (PGS) movement. The movement of these organic farms emerged from a community leadership programme initiated after the 1995 ceasefire agreement. The PGS-agroecology network works with a common goal to ensure both farmers and consumers remain safe and healthy. The network serves as a co-learning platform where farmers exchange knowledge and skills, connecting with local food processors, small traders, distributors and consumers. At the heart of their project is the belief that everyone has the right to choose healthy and nutritious food.

After the coup in 2021, the PGS-agroecology network was forced to cancel its non-profit entity registration. The country’s political instability followed by banking sector disruptions has largely restricted their learning and exchange activities as most of the network’s funding support was cut. Combined with spikes in fuel costs and widespread mobility restrictions, many farms in the network were forced to halt their operations.

Daw*, V-Farm’s founder, remains undeterred and continues working on her organic vegetable plot. Facing bans on street vending and economic hardships to maintain a small shop, V-Farm recently shifted to an online pre-order system to sell her vegetables, despite the frequent internet interruptions and cell phone blocks. To overcome the transportation disruptions, she seeks help from the “green bike” group, young cyclists that deliver the vegetables weekly to city dwellers and alleviate pressure from soaring fuel prices.

Currently, V-farm is collaborating with over 20 small farmers from surrounding areas to supply vegetables to 200 families. V-farm also sources cooking oil from remote oil processors and farmers and distributes it to the consumers. In this way, V-farm can continue producing and selling its products and at the same time support the regional peasant economy. The practices guarantee the availability of food for their consumers despite the lack of distribution venues for people to buy their day to day needs.

Amid the ongoing crisis, Daw insists that everyone should have access to healthy, nutritious food rather than simply having enough to fill their stomachs. Drawing on her many years of experience in the medical field, she has witnessed countless cases in which no treatment could cure a patient’s illness. She firmly believes that the lack of nutritious food is one of the root causes of many of the health problems affecting people in Myanmar, and this conviction lies at the centre of her mission. Her medical background has also enabled her to build a strong network across hospitals, including doctors, nurses, and patients, through which she supplies her produce. Beyond providing a reliable market, this network helps spread awareness about the quality and nutritional value of her vegetables. Looking ahead, she plans to further strengthen the 'guarantee' system, wherein consumers and producers work together to assess and ensure the quality of food within a shorter, more transparent distribution circuit.

Repeated conflicts and violence have marked Myanmar’s history, interrupted only by a period of relative stability between 2010 and 2020. Ironically, it was during this long-awaited period of peace that the Myanmar’s government opened the country to large-scale foreign agribusiness investments and plantations for the export market, such as banana production, which contributed to increasing levels of indebtedness among farmers.

Today, in the aftermath of the coup, nationwide disruptions to food trade have forced many farmers to prioritise their own food security and livelihoods. In doing so, they are beginning to recognise the importance of strengthening local food production and distribution systems as ways of building resilience against economic instability and shocks.

* names of people and places have been changed for their security

By GRAIN