CharitiesALLFED
ALLFED
Charity

ALLFED

Resilient Food Solutions

ALLFED's food system resilience program aims to increase the resilience of the world's food systems to global catastrophic food shocks through research, development, and policy recommendations.

Reducing global catastrophic risks
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What problem is ALLFED working on?

Experts have warned for decades that a global pandemic was imminent. Yet when COVID-19 struck, the world was largely unprepared. Moreover, as the public realised their cities would soon go into lockdown, their response was to hoard food, quickly emptying grocery store shelves — even as they were told there was no risk of a food shortage.

What will happen if, as experts predict, an even more devastating catastrophe occurs that actually does damage global food supplies?

If the climate changes dramatically — especially if the sun is blocked, for example, due to a nuclear war causing nuclear winter — or if there is a significant disruption to industry or shipping, global food supplies could dwindle. How can we continue to feed people and maintain peace if grocery stores truly do run out of food?

What does ALLFED do?

ALLFED seeks to provide practical food solutions so that, in the event of a global catastrophe, governments and communities can respond quickly, save lives, and reduce the risk to civilisation.

ALLFED researches resilient foods that can be scaled up quickly in a catastrophe. Because this work is so neglected and there is significant risk, ALLFED believes it is likely that this will cost-effectively save lives and improve the long-term future. ALLFED is also studying the best ways to communicate with governments and the public during a catastrophe. ALLFED’s solutions involve global alliance building and preparedness planning for resilient food systems.

ALLFED has received funding from an EA Lottery, the Centre for Effective Altruism, the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative and multiple times from the Survival and Flourishing Fund.

What information does Giving What We Can have about the cost-effectiveness of ALLFED?1.

We don't currently have further information about the cost-effectiveness of ALLFED beyond it doing work in a high-impact cause area and taking a reasonably promising approach.

Please note that GWWC does not evaluate individual charities. Our recommendations are based on the research of third-party, impact-focused charity evaluators our research team has found to be particularly well-suited to help donors do the most good per dollar, according to their recent evaluator investigations. Our other supported programs are those that align with our charitable purpose — they are working on a high-impact problem and take a reasonably promising approach (based on publicly-available information).

At Giving What We Can, we focus on the effectiveness of an organisation's work -- what the organisation is actually doing and whether their programs are making a big difference. Some others in the charity recommendation space focus instead on the ratio of admin costs to program spending, part of what we’ve termed the “overhead myth.” See why overhead isn’t the full story and learn more about our approach to charity evaluation.