Food securityCOVID-19 Is Another Wake Up Call for Food Security

Published 27 April 2020

With lockdowns ordered to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, there are fears of food shortages caused by panic buying and supply chain disruptions. Paul Teng writes in SciDev.Net that recent announcements by some countries that they are initiating export restrictions of food products or reviewing export agreements have brought back memories of the 2007—2008 food crisis when there was an interruption to global food supply chains as several key countries limited exports of rice and wheat. This unleashed a series of events around the world, including food shortages, price spikes and civil disobedience in over 30 countries.

With lockdowns ordered to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, there are fears of food shortages caused by panic buying and supply chain disruptions. Paul Teng writes in SciDev.Net that recent announcements by some countries that they are initiating export restrictions of food products or reviewing export agreements have brought back memories of the 2007—2008 food crisis when there was an interruption to global food supply chains as several key countries limited exports of rice and wheat. This unleashed a series of events around the world, including food shortages, price spikes and civil disobedience in over 30 countries.

He adds:

What is known about the effect of COVID-19 on food security till now? Food security is the multidimensional complex of making food available (by growing, imports or stockpiles), ensuring physical access (moving food from where it is produced to where it is consumed), ensuring affordable prices (no price hikes), safeguarding food safety and nutrition value, and assuring stability in all these dimensions.

Food availability and access at the cross-country level has not been noticeably affected even though time-bound export restrictions have been imposed by countries like Kazakhstan on wheat flour, Serbia on sunflower oil, Thailand on eggs; but these do not contribute significantly to the global markets.

Two credible organisations — the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) — have both publicly said that there are enough stocks globally of staples like wheat and rice, for the rest of 2020. Unless the big players like the US, European Union, Russia and Ukraine start limiting wheat, and principal rice exporters like India, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and the US start limiting rice, supply chains should remain relatively free-flowing.

However, at the intra-country level, COVID-19 has had effects that are being felt. Some of these effects are not directly attributable to virus infection but to the preventive measures taken to avoid escalation of infection.