Impact COVID-19 on agri-food systems

1. Impact of Covid-19 on global agri-food system
Ruerd Ruben

2. Global crisis: from health to food
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Health crisis Economic recession Poverty & Hunger

3. Agri-food sector
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Trade bans
Import & export
restrictions
Price volatilty ↑
Lockdown
(2.6 billion people)
Mobility
restrictions
Food supply ↓
Laydowns Unemployment Incomes ↓

4. Covid-19 Impact on Poverty & Diets
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Major dietary changes
• Increase food expenditure
share
• Shorter chains for local
sourcing (fruit & vegetables)
• Difficulties in (inter)national
trade of staple foods (cereals)
• Cautious consumption of
animal-based products (dairy,
poultry, pork, fish)
• Higher intake of (semi)
processed foods

5. 5
Demand shifts drive change in relative food prices
Fig 4. Rising stock prices for groceries
& declining stock prices food services
Figure 2. Rice prices shooting up
Figure 1: Future commodity prices Figure 3: Animal protein future prices

6. Covid19 Impact of producers & consumers
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Effects on SMEs in Africa Change in consumer purchases (China)

7. Food system adjustments:
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 Booming food retail  fresh & processed foods
 Closure food services  less out-of-home consumption
 More home deleviries  ICT proficiency
 No more school meals  350 million children
 Road blocks  breakdown of SMEs
input supply constraints (seed, fert)

8. Agri-food policy trends
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 De-globalization  Shorter supply chains (close to market)
Lower labour remittances
 Diversification  Multiple sourcing relationships
 Digitalization  ICT devices for health & food
 Concentration  Consolidation of agri-food enterprises
 Bi-modality  Big government + Big campanies

9. COVID-19 Mitigation Responses
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 Demand stimulation  Cash transfers (vouchers)
Public procurement
 Keep trade flowing  Informal markets (SME pre-finance)
International cargo facilities
 Investments  Trade credit (informal markets)
Labour substitution (women’s jobs)
 Debts ($62 bn)  Multilateral reschuduling (IMF + China)

10. Sources for Information
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