Policy briefs
The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting not only food trade, food supply chains and markets but also people’s lives, livelihoods and nutrition.
This collection of policy briefs presents a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the pandemic’s impacts on these areas.
Briefs are released on a day-to-day basis. Please check back frequently for the latest available briefs.
For media queries on any of the below topics, please contact [email protected]
Global emergence of infectious diseases: links with wild meat consumption, ecosystem disruption, habitat degradation and biodiversity loss
05/06/2020
This policy brief focuses on the topic of global emergence of infectious diseases and its links with consumption of wild meat, ecosystem disruption, habitat degradation and biodiversity loss. Emerging infectious diseases are a significant and growing threat to global health, economies and security. There is evidence that landscape changes and...
The role of social protection measures
05/06/2020
As the pandemic has progressed, governments have had to face new challenges. If, in the first stage, countries focused on mitigating the effects of strict sanitary restrictions, over the weeks attention has shifted to an especially serious threat: the economic and social crisis. The forecasts, unfortunately are not encouraging. In...
Legal considerations in responses to COVID-19 to mitigate the risk of disruption to fisheries and aquaculture food systems
08/06/2020
This brief identifies some of the areas that governments have intervened through emergency law to strengthen a resilient fisheries and aquaculture food supply chains and illustrates how these regulatory measures can be adopted by other countries thereby contribute to ensuring food security and economic development for all especially the indigenous...
Why export restrictions should not be a response to COVID-19: Learning lessons from experience with rice in Asia and the Pacific
09/06/2020
The spread of COVID-19 has created tremendous uncertainty on a number of fronts, including the availability of food supplies. In such a situation, countries might be prompted to restrict their food exports to ensure greater domestic availability in the short term. However, such restrictions can cause panic, leading to price...
Impacts of coronavirus on food security and nutrition in Asia and the Pacific: Building more resilient food systems
09/06/2020
The COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious threat to food security and nutrition. Economic turmoil caused by the pandemic threatens both economic and physical access to food (FAO, 2019). Declining incomes may make food, particularly nutritious food, less affordable for some, especially the poor. Disruptions to and possible breakdowns of marketing,...
Impact of COVID-19 on national censuses of agriculture (Status overview)
12/06/2020
The FAO Statistics Division is monitoring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on national agricultural censuses and provides an overview of its effects on ongoing activities. The information presented is the result of a rapid appraisal and informal consultations with national agricultural census authorities.
The opportunity for digital transformation
12/06/2020
The impacts of COVID-19 grow daily. The pandemic has unleashed a crisis not only in health but also in economics. In such a scenario - in which achieving economic, social and environmental sustainability is increasingly essential for the planet - the agri-food system needs urgent and innovative solutions. In this...
Enabling agricultural innovation systems to promote appropriate technologies and practices for farmers, rural youth and women during COVID-19
12/06/2020
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will vary for different groups of rural population, with the highest impact expected to be on farmers and other vulnerable groups, especially women and youth. Targeted support is feasible only by activating a network of actors or organizations within agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and...
The effect of COVID-19 on fisheries and aquaculture in Asia
18/06/2020
On 10 April 2020, one month after the World Health Organization declared the spread of COVID-19 a pandemic, FAO published ‘How is COVID-19 affecting the fisheries and aquaculture food systems’ (FAO, 2020a). That policy brief, while global in scope, addressed the situation in some Asian countries. This paper provides an...
Rural youth and the COVID-19 pandemic
23/06/2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all parts of society and livelihoods around the globe. It is though worth recognizing that disadvantaged segments of populations like rural young women and men will be impacted harder, nevertheless, when proactively engaged, they have demonstrated to be innovators in their own sectors to surmount...
Measures for supporting wholesale food markets during COVID-19
23/06/2020
Recent COVID-19 outbreaks in wholesale and retail food markets, slaughterhouses and meat processing plants throughout the world underscore the continued importance of rigorous application of COVID-19 health protocols to minimize disruptions to the food system. This brief is focused on wholesale food markets (WFMs) – common facilities that group multiple...
COVID-19 and malnutrition: situation analysis and options in Africa
01/07/2020
More than 820 million people in the world were hungry in 2018 (FAO, 2019). In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there were 239 million undernourished people, with a prevalence of 22.8 percent as measured by the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU), a Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) indicator. The target is to...
The dual threat of extreme weather and the COVID-19 crisis: Anticipating the impacts on food availability
16/07/2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound negative effect on the global economy and is occurring in the context of a rapidly changing climate. This year is expected to be the second hottest in recorded history. Weather forecasts for 2020 indicate a high probability that extreme weather will adversely affect...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and family farming
24/07/2020
Family farmers, especially those operating at a small-scale level, are particularly exposed to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Temporary movement restrictions hinder their access to markets, and the perishable goods and small animals they mostly produce and keep are the most affected by being cut off from markets and...
Migrant workers and remittances in the context of COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa
27/07/2020
African migrants stimulate economic growth and development in areas of destination, transit and origin through their labour, skills transfer, consumption and investments. Their remittances also make significant contributions to food security, human capital, rural development and overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in areas of origin. The impact of COVID-19 affects migrant...
One Health legislation: Contributing to pandemic prevention through law
30/07/2020
It is increasingly recognized that human, plant and animal health, environmental health and food security are inter-linked and that the degradation of ecological systems has significantly increased the overall risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks, in addition to having other complex effects on human health. The devastating human, social and economic...
Farmers and agribusinesses at risk under COVID-19: What role for blended finance funds?
05/08/2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major economic shock, throwing into question the resilience of the agrifood sector at this stage, particularly in developing countries where self-employed, wage and informal workers are threatened by food supply chain disruptions, limitations on movement and trade restrictions. Even before the crisis, small and medium...
COVID-19 and indigenous peoples
10/08/2020
There are 476 million indigenous peoples around the world, constituting 6.2 percent of the global population and, according to different sources, representing more than 19 percent of the extreme poor. Indigenous peoples are not a homogenous group. They live in over 90 countries, in rural and urban areas, in forests,...
Preserving African food value chains in the midst of the coronavirus crisis
12/08/2020
In light of the uncertainties surrounding the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, policy makers must ensure that national responses to the virus do not trigger a food crisis. The Covid-19 outbreak can shift the balance between food demand and supply, especially considering many countries having declared lockdowns and their borders closed. Countries...
Impact of COVID-19 on agriculture, food systems and rural livelihoods in Eastern Africa
12/08/2020
The FAO Subregional Office for Eastern Africa is a technical hub which supports nine countries in Eastern Africa: Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda. It has a core team of professionals with multidisciplinary expertise. It is responsible for developing, promoting, overseeing and implementing agreed strategies...