Introduction:

• Global pandemic is not a new scenario for mankind as there are

number of episodes of various pandemic. Every pandemic have
affected the human activities and economic growth of the world.
Currently we are facing COVID-19 (corona virus disease of 2019).
COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) l. The first confirmed case of
COVID-19 was detected in Wuhan (capital of China’s Hubei province)
epicenter of corona virus outbreak. Due to novelty of virus strain, the
disease is spreading between people at alarming rate.
WHO has declared COVID-19 outbreak as global pandemic on March
11, 2020. The virus has affected the lives of many people. It is
estimated that COVID-19 will affect the global economy more than
SARS. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OCED) has forecasted decrease in economic growth from 2.9% to 2.4%
in 2020 and has warned that, economic growth may also reach nearly
1.5% if the pandemic is prolonged. ILO has stated that, “COVID-19
crises: the most severe crisis since the Second World War”
Agriculture is one of the important sectors for world economy and it is
the biggest industry in USA. Agriculture is indispensible to food security
and human development. FAO has estimated that more than 60% of
the world population relies on agriculture for survival. According to ILO,
out of total employer population in 2019, 26.85% of employers are in
agricultural sector. In the scenario of ongoing global COVID-19
pandemic, it is important and of immense necessity to investigate the
impact of COVID-19 on food and agriculture. Therefore, this paper was
prepared to know all the possible impact of COVID-19 on food and
agriculture in global context.
Impact of COVID-19 on agriculture:
COVID-19 has affected all the processes which connect farm production
to final consumer. Moreover, it seems to strike the food production
system and food value chain. The negative impact of pandemic on
supply and demand for food might lead food security at risk.
•Impact on food production and distribution
Most of the countries have taken measures such as home confinement,
travel bans and business closure to control the rate of infection. Such
travel restriction had affected every stages of food supply chain with
major impact on food didistribution. World Merchandise trade is
believedto decline by 13% to 22% due to COVID-19
Different agricultural sector such as crop, livestock and fishery have been hit hard by
pandemic. In china, COVID-19 has caused higher impact on livestock farming due to
limited access to animal feed and shortage of labour. Travel ban in many countries has
affected delivery of breeding stock of poultry. The International Poultry Council (IPC) has
warned that there will be no breeding stock and hatching eggs if such travel restriction
prolonged. Fish is an important source of protein and energy and accounts for more than
20% of animal protein for 3 million people. Fishing activities have been reduced in
different part of Africa, Asia and Europe due to sanitary measures (physical distancing),
limited supply of inputs and labour shortage. Fish farmers are unable to sell their harvest
as well as there is difficulty in aquaculture production due to lack of seed and feed.
Agriculture produce are mostly perishable in nature, so farmer are compelled to store
their unsold produce for longer period of time which leads to reduction in food quality as
well as increase in cost of production. The supply of milk and dairy product has been hit
hardest by COVID-19. Dairy farmers are compelled to dump milk and milk product after
remarkable decrease in supply of milk and closure of milk processing company. Dairy
farmers in America estimate that farmers nationwide are dumping nearly four million
gallons of milk each day. In Nepal, dairy product of worth NPR 2 billion have been
damaged and dairy product in stock of worth NPR 5 billion seems on the verge of
deterioration.
Due to global trade disturbance, farmers are facing the shortage of agricultural inputs like seed,
fertilizer and pesticides. China is one of the major fertilizer producing producer and exporter in
the world. The lockdown in China have severely affected the international fertilizer trade.
Pandemic have affected the planting of spring crops like maize, sunflower, spring wheat, barley,
canola and open field vegetable. According to Singh, India alone need 250 lakh quintals of seed
for crop production in kharif season. Therefore, sowing of zaid and kahrif season crop might be
affected if the pandemic prolonged. Thus import dependent countries seem to be highly
affected by pandemic. Regarding the high rate of transmission of COVID-19, workers health and
labour shortage have been major issue in agricultural industry. Workers in low and middle
income countries lack proper health services and social protection and due to little saving or no
saving, many informal workers in agriculture are obligate to work despite the self-isolation
protocol during COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, these workers are at high risk of corona virus. Most
of the farm producers are facing the manpower shortage. Travel ban have made the shortage of
seasonal and informal farm workers. There is rapid increase in employment losses around the
world. International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that COVID-19 has affected the 81%
(2.7 billion workers) global work force due to full or partial closure of the work place. To
overcome these entire scenarios, many governmental and non-governmental organizations are
playing their role to maintain continuous food supply chain. Currently Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) is working with a main aim to maintain food value chain and keep food
supply going.
Impact on food demand and food security:
Demand refers to consumer’s desire and capacity to
purchase goods and services in a given period of time. The demand of
food has affected due to reduction in income and purchasing capacity.
Panicked Consumers are stock piling the foods which in turn has
affected the food availability and price. The price of the commodities
however depends on the country and their policy to control pandemic.
According to Siche, theprices of the basic necessities are expected to be
stable, while spike in price may occur for high-valued products [15]. In
the present scenarios, the consumption of animal protein has been
decreased significantly due to misleading perception of animal as a
reservoir of virus.
Food security simply refers to availability and accessibility of sufficient
amount of nutritious food in consistent manner. Due to decline in
international trade, disturbance in food supply chain and food production,
food insecurity may arise. FAO had mentioned that, small farmer and fisher
may face difficulty in selling their product which in turn cause decrease in
their income and purchasing capacity. Food insecurity raised due to COVID-
19 will highly affect the poorest and the most vulnerable segments of the
population. At present, 820 million people are facing chronic hunger and
113 million are facing acute severe insecurity. Thus, disturbance in food
access brought by pandemic affects these groups immediately and
severely. Around 10 million children depend upon the school meals to
fulfill their nutritional requirement. But due to closing of schools and
suspension of school meal programs, these children are no longer receiving
daily school meals which may reduce their capacity to cope with diseases.
Conclusion:
Thus, we concluded that food and agriculture are not outside
the impact of COVID-19. Crop, Livestock and Fisheries have been
affected by this pandemic. Food safety and security are the global
concern at present scenario. The supply chain has been hit hardest by
COVID-19, which causes food security of most vulnerable segment of
population at risk. And also, most of the migrant, informal, seasonal
farm workers are losing their jobs which may affect the demand for
food. Therefore, the government should enforce the measures to
control the pandemic without disturbing the food supply chain and
considering the food security of their citizen.