Covid 19 Channels Of Transmission To Food And Agriculture

FAO is analysing and providing updates on the emerging COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on agricultural markets—effects that are still largely unknown. Most current assessments generally foresee a contraction in both supply of and demand for agricultural products, and point to possible disruptions in trade and logistics. On the supply side, widely different views remain on the duration of the shocks, the price dynamics, differential impacts between domestic and international markets, differences across countries and commodities, the likely paths of recovery, and the policy actions to remedy the various shock waves. On the demand side, there is near ubiquitous agreement that agricultural demand and trade would slow-down, with contractions stemming from a deceleration in overall economic activity (GDP growth) and rising rates of unemployment. While food and agricultural systems are exposed to both demand and supply side shocks (symmetric), these shocks are not expected to take place in parallel (asynchronous) since, inter alia, consumers can draw on savings, food stocks and safety nets.

Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health, economic, and social disruptions caused by this global crisis continue to evolve. The impacts of the pandemic are likely to endure for years to come, with poor, marginalized, and vulnerable groups the most affected. In COVID-19 & Global Food Security: Two Years Later, the editors bring together contributions from new IFPRI research, blogs, and the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub to examine the pandemic’s effects on poverty, food security, nutrition, and health around the world. This volume presents key lessons learned on food security and food system resilience in 2020 and 2021 and assesses the effectiveness of policy responses to the crisis. Looking forward, the authors consider how the pandemic experience can inform both recovery and longer-term efforts to build more resilient food systems.

There have been numerous economic difficulties felt by several countries in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) in recent years, generating difficult and region-specific challenges for the food and agriculture systems of the region. The COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent economic crisis made a bad situation worse. This report does an extensive review and analysis of policy decisions made by 19 governments in the region in response to the COVID-19 crisis, from March 2020 to May 2020. The broad range of policy decisions were reviewed based on the Food and Agriculture Policy Decision Analysis (FAPDA) database, complemented by information on disruptions of food and agriculture systems and related policy responses provided by regional and country offices. Results from the review indicate what were the major policy responses from most countries in the region, including common policy responses targeting consumers and producers. It further shows that the magnitude of measures implemented in the region is characterized by a somewhat foreseeable divide between oil- and gas-rich countries and all other NENA countries. Benefiting from this consolidated analysis of the regional policy response, the report draws insights and provides general recommendations that may feed the policy debate at the national, regional, and global levels, facilitating better-targeted policy support and contribute to economic recovery with coordinated policy responses across countries.

The rapid escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted structural problems with Libyan food and agriculture value chains. Nine years of protracted conflict weakened Libya’s agriculture and deteriorated its food and agribusiness sector. The entire value chain is underdeveloped, is not well integrated and depends on imports, making it vulnerable to global supply shocks. The pandemic response requires a strong policy responses starting by making food and nutrition assistance at the heart of social protection programmes in Libya and to keep the food value chain alive by focusing on key logistics bottlenecks. Libya will benefit from keeping the global food trade open to be able to keep physical and economic access to food feasible and sustainable. Libya may rethink its food security to ensure strong and significant recovery from both conflict and COVID-19 crisis.

This report is part of a series of country profiles that describe: (i) policy measures enacted by the government of South Sudan to contain the spread of the virus; (ii) policies and measures to stabilize the functioning of agri-food systems; (iii) potential effects of policies on agri-food systems and vulnerable groups. Finally, the profiles also assess longer-term options for agri-food system policies and investments to make them more resilient.

The coronavirus pandemic has sparked not only a health crisis but also an economic crisis, which together pose a serious threat to food security, particularly in poorer countries. COVID-19 & Global Food Security brings together a groundbreaking series of IFPRI blog posts looking at the impacts of COVID-19 and the policy responses. IFPRI researchers and guest bloggers provide key insights and analysis on how the global pandemic is affecting global poverty and food security and nutrition, food trade and supply chains, gender, employment, and a variety of policy interventions, as well as reflections on how we can use these lessons to better prepare for future pandemics. These pieces draw on a combination of conceptual arguments, global and country-level simulation models, in-country surveys, case studies, and expert opinions. Together, they present a comprehensive picture of the current and potential impact of COVID-19 and the world’s policy responses on global food and nutrition security.

Governments worldwide are implementing an extensive range of prevention and mitigation measures to control the spread of COVID-19 and limit its health, economic and social consequences. COVID-19 policy actions could have significant negative impacts across the food system, mainly if the policies are uncoordinated and built on limited evidence. In Jordan, the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to cause direct harm to health, livelihoods, to people living standard and overall national economies. This articulates the importance of formulating long, medium and short-term policies to deal with pandemic priorities and alleviate COVID-19 and increase development investments in the agriculture sector as one of the most critical sectors in such these conditions. This study determines the short-term impact of COVID-19 on agriculture and food supply and identifies the positive impact of government measures taken across the country of Jordan. This rapid assessment utilized primary data and existing data related to the agriculture-food systems sector to understand the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and produced recommendations and policy actions. The assessment's general objective is to identify the effects of COVID-19 on Agri-food systems actors and recommend policies to alleviate the negative impact. It explores the range of policies, strategies and actions, in the short- and medium/long-term in the broader agriculture/food systems sector. Recommendations and suggested policies (10 policies) are formed depending on the results of the field surveys (farmers, exporters and supply chain actors survey), the results of secondary data analysis, IMF targeted policies (9 pillars), Jordan COVID-19 and Food Security Rapid Assessment-Policy

This report shares the analysis on the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the agri-food system in the Sudan based on the assessment conducted during July–August 2020. Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is implementing a project to contribute to data collection and analysis linked to COVID-19 to inform evidence-based programming in selected countries. The objective is to assess the effects of COVID-19 in the agri-food system, which includes livestock and fishing, food supply, livelihoods and food security of the rural population at national level. Information is collected from primary sources of the production process: producer households, traders or marketers, inputs suppliers, extension officers and key informants. The first round of data collection has been completed, with rounds II and III foreseen in 2021.