As public life shuts down in most parts of the world owing to the novel COVID-19, economies of several countries are plummeting with major impact on various sectors such as healthcare, aviation, agriculture, oil and gas, hospitality and many more. A pandemic that was first detected in Wuhan, China, and reported to the World Health st Organization on the 31 December 2019 has as at 15 April 2020, accounted for One Million, Nine Hundred and Forty Eight Thousand, Five Hundred and Eleven (1,948,511) cases (in accordance with the applied case definitions and testing strategies in the affected countries), including One Hundred and Twenty Five Thousand, Nine Sixty Six (125 966) deaths. While it is quite tricky to assess at this point, the devastating effect of COVID-19 world wide, the predictions so far make the heart cringe as we wait for events to unfold, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
The agricultural industry so far, has not and is most likely not going to be left behind in the devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economies of the world. The restrictions placed on the movement of goods and people in various nations in an effort to curb the spread of the pandemic can have significant socio-economic repercussions on people’s livelihoods, going beyond the direct impact on health, and affecting the most vulnerable groups. While these restrictions are necessary to limit the spread of a disease, they often lead to disruption of market chains and trade of agricultural products, with significant potential impacts on the populations that depend on them for their livelihoods and their food and nutrition security. In such cases, local economies are often the hardest hit, as businesses remain shuttered and consumers hunkered down in their homes.
