Impact of COVID-19 on the delivery of veterinary services and animal disease reporting

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed the lives of individuals, communities, and societies around the world, including those working in the animal health sector. To further examine the impact of COVID-19 on the activities of animal health workers and their ability to report animal disease, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Emergency Management Centre for Animal Health (EMC-AH) and Emergency Prevention System for Animal Health (EMPRES-AH) conducted surveys to collect and analyze data on the topic. To do so, EMPRES-AH designed a survey using the Event Mobile Application (EMA-i) tool, which was developed by FAO to support veterinary services in real-time disease reporting, whereas EMC-AH developed a specific survey for veterinary services that was circulated through national Chief Veterinarian Officers (CVOs) with support from FAO regional offices. This brief presents a breakdown of both surveys, the methodology behind them and a summary of the feedback.

Contact person: Madhur Dhingra, Senior animal health officer and Head of the Emergency Prevention System for Animal Health (EMPRES-AH)

Food systems and COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the difficulties cities face in managing crises that are exacerbated by population density and depend on supply chains that often start outside the city for their resolution. For this reason, one of the unfortunate consequences of the pandemic crisis has been an increase in hunger and malnutrition, hence reduced food and nutrition security.

Coping strategies of dairy cooperatives and loss and waste reduction during the COVID-19 pandemic: the case of India and Japan

Unlike any other crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted food value chains at all levels (production, processing, logistics and even consumer behaviour to name a few). The impacts vary across countries and are constantly changing with the spread of the pandemic as governments, stakeholders and other actors in value chains adopt and implement a broad spectrum of measures to manage the spread of the virus and mitigate its impacts on food insecurity and poverty. The present brief reviews secondary information pertinent to the impacts of COVID-19 on dairy producing/processing cooperatives, and their coping strategies, with a view to developing policy recommendations that focus on food loss and waste reduction. 

Impact de la crise covid-19 sur les secteurs de la pêche et de l’aquaculture dans les pays du Maghreb

La présente note stratégique a pour objectif d’évaluer l’impact socio-économique de la pandémie de la covid-19 sur les secteurs de la pêche et de l’aquaculture dans quatre pays du Maghreb (Algérie, Maroc, Mauritanie et Tunisie) afin de proposer des orientations et des recommandations relatives aux mesures d'atténuation possibles pour ces pays. Elle a été réalisée dans le cadre d’une enquête lancée par le bureau de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture pour l’Afrique du Nord, de mars à août 2020.

The role of social protection in the recovery from COVID-19 impacts in fisheries and aquaculture

Food systems were severely hit by COVID-19 and the related restrictions to the movement of people and goods. In fisheries and aquaculture, the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 are manifold including changes in consumer demand, limited storage facilities, drop in fresh fish prices and stopping fishing operations. Social protection has been a key response that governments took to alleviate the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 restrictions for fishery-dependent communities. Countries with strong social protection systems in place were the most flexible to respond rapidly by adapting social protection programmes to the impact of COVID-19. Countries with weak social protection systems were less able to tailor programmes to attend the sector which is characterized by high informality. Several people who lost their employment were also left without any access to income support.

Contact person: Daniela Kalikoski, Fishery Industry Officer