Impact of COVID in Agriculture

Abstract

Current pandemic turned into a worldwide health crisis that having a devastating impact on both human society and the world economy. COVID-19 has had repercussions in most economic sectors and implicitly in the food and agricultural sector. While food supplies have been kept in more states, measures implemented to stop virus spreading have disrupted the ability to provide supplies of agri-food good and products for markets and consumers. COVID-19 affected all elements of the food system, from primary supply, to processing, to trade, as well as national and international logistics systems, to intermediate and final demand. Thus, COVID 19 started threatening all the sectors in the poorest countries, where agricultural production systems consume labor above the average, and where the ability to resist to a macro economic shock is very week. Demand for goods is expected to fall in the coming months, and prices will fall, and this will have a negative impact on farmers and the agricultural sector. Policy makers and managerial staff from all over the globe must pay attention and make the most suitable steps so that they do not transform the current health crisis into a completely regrettable one related to goods and products from all sectors. While the pandemic presents some serious shortterm challenges for the agrifood system, it represents in the same time a suitable moment to speed up changes in the agricultural area in order to rethink the strategy to combat the effects of climate change on this area of activity.