Covid-19

Call for Discussion Papers on the COVID-19 epidemic

The COVID-19 epidemic has caused substantial shocks on food systems worldwide. Trade and border restrictions as well as regional lockdowns are disrupting food supply chains and preventing the availability of financial and human capital. This contingent situation has reduced agricultural outputs and employment in several regions with possible consequences on food access and social inequalities, and thus on food security. Furthermore, the epidemic is having profound impacts on people’s lifestyles including consumers’ purchasing and eating behaviour: those effects will be likely to generate shocks on the food industry. Moreover, the epidemic is having important impacts on many food-related sectors such as public health, waste management and environmental resource management.

Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 epidemic claims for a better understanding of the vulnerability and resilience concepts as well as policy solutions and actions to recovery food-system functioning.

Whilst the pace of the pandemic is gradually slowing down and the so-called “phase two” is starting in several countries, the social and economic challenges of reconstruction will be, if possible, even more difficult to deal with.

BAE will give its contribution by starting an “Open Stream”, a section on the BAE web page to stimulate a constructive debate. Short communications, critical review articles, discussion papers and research articles will be welcomed (there will be no word limits, and even short pieces such as opinion papers or point of view will be appreciated).

The list of topics of interest is reported below, although we will welcome also other topics that are related to the relationship between the pandemic and the bio-economy:

Authors are encouraged to submit their contributions under the dedicated section "Covid-19 Open Stream Contribution" in the BAE editorial system, using the following link: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/bae/about/submissions

The submissions, after the editorial pre-screening, will be posted online, and promptly shared and promoted to our community. The DOI code and descriptive metadata will be immediately available for download and citation. All submissions that will pass the pre-screening process will be published open access (CC-BY).

A selection of the submitted contributions will be peer-reviewed for potential publication in a Special Issue of BAE. In order to receive full consideration for the Special Issue, authors are encouraged to submit their paper by July 2020.

 

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Wine after the pandemic? All the doubts in a glass

Daniele Vergamini, Fabio Bartolini, Gianluca Brunori 

University of Pisa: Dep. of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Italy

 

Published Online: 2020-07-07 |

DOI: 10.13128/bae-9017

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has triggered an unprecedented global crisis, the increasing recessions in many countries and related trade uncertainties are affecting the whole wine sector, from production to distribution, sales, and consumption. While the full recovery is still uncertain, and even worse scenarios are possible if it takes longer to bring back trust and financial stability on wine markets, the crisis risks to jeopardies recent developments and sustainability in wine territories. Developing from a mixed-method participatory research process that integrates recent economic prospective with diverse experience data, we offer a critical reflection made by researchers and stakeholders supporting several socio-economic narratives and policy implications in the light of the current crisis. Distinguishing between short and long-term implications, we offer a reflection on the policy needs to alleviate the ongoing suffering of the sector. The speed and scope of the pandemic crisis underscore the need for the wine sector to become more resilient by increasing the ability to cooperate and coordinate among supply chain actors and between policy levels. The latter offers a reflection on the balance between short-term interventions and the complementarity of post-2020 CAP measures to stabilize market and future incomes. We conclude that once the crisis abates, it will be necessary to reaffirm credible commitment and trust at all levels, not only with regard to the vineyard and the cellars but also on distribution, especially in the face of a changing demand that in the future will become more pressing for issues related to safety and sustainability.

 

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Coronomics and global economy: A purview of the impact of Coronavirus on the global economy

Balogu, Ikechukwu Eric1,2 Balogu, Tochukwu Vincent3

1Business School, University of Suffolk, United Kingdom.

2Career staff member, African Development Bank (African Natural Resources Centre), Cote d’Ivoire 

3Department of Microbiology, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai Nigeria

 

Published Online: 2020-08-07 |

DOI: 10.13128/bae-9522

ABSTRACT

The global economy is at the verge of total collapse due to the unabating coronavirus pandemic. The undesirable impacts of coronavirus on the global economy are termed “Coronomics”- a term coined from the combination of two words: coronavirus and economics. Due to the impacts of coronavirus, the world is transiting to a “new normal” characterized by economic, health, humanitarian and social crisis. The unfortunate reality is that governments are prioritizing salvaging the economies rather than mitigating the health (and social) crisis; perhaps, hunger and poverty kill faster than COVID-19. According to the United Nations’ report (2020 p.1), the best approach to alleviate the pandemic economic hazards is through multilateral response, comprehensively coordinated, accounting for over 10% of total global GDP.

 

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Italian Farms During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Main Problems and Future Perspectives: A direct analysis through the Italian FADN

Cesaro, L., Giampaolo, A., Giarè, F., Sardone, R., Scadera, A., Viganò, L.

Council for Agricultural Research and Economics - Research Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy (CREA PB)

 

Published Online: 2020-08-07 |

DOI: 10.13128/bae-9552

ABSTRACT

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, in the period February-May 2020, triggered a large-scale crisis, causing an immediate slowdown in production and consequently a sharp contraction in domestic demand and trade.
Agriculture, together with numerous downstream activities in the sector, was immediately included among those defined as "essential"; however, the sector has faced numerous difficulties, as showed by the reduction of the added value during the first quarter of 2020 (-1.9% respect to the previous quarter), which were more or less serious depending on the technical-production system, the marketing channels utilized, the final markets (domestic or foreign), the degree of dependence on external production factors, especially labour, and areas where farms are located.
The evolutionary framework of the coming months, still uncertain, and the need to plan the expected responses in the political arena have made it appropriate to launch a fact-finding Survey that would allow a better understanding of the specific situation of the Italian agricultural sector and the check of the solutions adopted by farms to cope with it. For this purpose, a direct Survey was carried out, aimed at collecting information from the Italian farms of the FADN sample.
The results highlight the important consequences of the COVID-19 emergency on the sector. 37% of the farmers interviewed experienced a liquidity crisis while 60% predicted a contraction in turnover, wider in the case of the wine, olives, and horticulture types of farming and in that of medium / large farms compared to the smaller ones. Relatively more optimistic forecasts have been found for farms that outsource processing and / or marketing activities.

 

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Agritourism in crisis during COVID-19: Italian farms’ resilience and entrepreneurial strategies to face the impacts of the pandemic

Alessandro Buonaccorsi

University of Pisa: Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Italy

Organization of Agronomist and Forestry Doctors: professional order of Pisa-Lucca-Massa, Italy

 

Published Online: 2020-09-29 |

DOI: 10.13128/bae-9554

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, rural tourism has become one of the most dynamic and fastest growing economic sectors in Italy. The importance of this sector as a driver for job creation and the promotion of local economic development, culture and products is reflected in several of the Sustainable Development Goals that set forth tourism-specific targets. COVID-19 has triggered an unprecedented global crisis. Coordinated policy responses are needed to support agritourism and the livelihoods and working conditions of about 100,000 agricultural workers. Farms are asking for additional measures to guarantee the survival of agritourism in the medium and long terms. The speed and scope of the pandemic crisis underscore the need for the agritourism sector to become more resilient. Rural tourism could be a much safer or more manageable form of tourism.

 

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Rethinking wine consumption after Covid-19: the Italian scenario between new and disrupted habits

Giulia Gastaldello, Daniele Mozzato, Luca Rossetto

University of Padova, Italy

 

Published Online: 2020-11-24 |

DOI: 10.13128/bae-10044

ABSTRACT

In Italy, wine is an integral part of most people’s habits and lifestyle. The advent of a traumatic event as the Covid pandemic, though, brought deep changes in people’s life: economic instability and normality disruption led consumers to revise their priorities and to modify their consumption and purchase behavior. The following study analyses the impact of socio-demographics, psychological and context-related modifications induced by the pandemic on wine consumption and purchase patterns. An online structured survey was delivered to a sample of Italian wine consumers and Logistic Regression was applied. Results highlight consuming wine is a deeply rooted habit in Italian consumers’ life which resisted the great context modifications following the pandemic. Changes in wine consumption, moreover, are connected to that of other alcoholic beverages. Psychological difficulties show no direct effect on variations in wine consumption frequency, while some significant indirect effects emerged. Information collected is paramount to understand wine consumers reaction and behavioral changes induced by the pandemic and effectively plan market(ing) strategies during new peaks of infection.

 

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Italian real estate market during COVID-19: an increasingly green future?

Alessandro Buonaccorsi

University of Pisa: Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Italy

Organization of Agronomist and Forestry Doctors: professional order of Pisa-Lucca-Massa, Italy

 

Published Online: 2021-03-31 |

DOI: 10.13128/bae-10300

ABSTRACT

The effect of pandemics or health emergencies on housing markets is an unexplored topic in international literature. COVID-19 is changing the housing interests of Italians in a real estate market that represents about 20% of the national GDP. The pandemic has revived the demand for country houses and cottages in villages and small towns. The new trends in the urban real estate market, on the other hand, concern a house where everyone can have their own independence within a common space. At the same time, the demand for more efficient and eco-sustainable buildings is also growing, thanks to eco-tax incentives. The government can help stimulate demand for sustainable public real estate assets: respect for the environment has gone from being a luxury option to a necessity for the global built environment sector.

 

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The COVID-19 pandemic and the EU agri-food sector: Member State impacts and recovery pathways

Ana Rosa Gonzalez-Martineza, Roel Jongeneela,b, Petra Salamone, Annalisa Zezzac, Federica De Mariac, Nobert Potorid

a Wageningen Economic Research, The Netherlands.

b Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands.

c National Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, Italy.

d Institute of Agricultural Economics, Hungary.

e Independent Consultant, Germany.

 

Published Online: 2021-08-24 |

DOI: 10.36253/bae-11504

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of what we understand as ‘normality’. Looking back at 2020, the implementation of lockdowns and other restrictive measures became a worldwide strategy to curb the spread of the virus. In the course of 2020, different global economic outlooks estimated the potential consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on GDP. However, most of these outlooks explore the impacts of the pandemic globally or for large World regions, lacking insights at country and sector level. Insights at country and sector level are becoming increasingly important and therefore AGMEMOD (Agricultural Member State Modelling) can contribute to this when focusing on agriculture. Specifically, this article explores the potential economic consequences for the sector under alternative mid-term recovery pathways. In particular, three ‘narratives’ have been defined by considering alternative developments of the present ‘public health’ crisis combined with diverse economic prospects for the near future. The analysis confirms that the agriculture sector has been quite resilient during the pandemic. The simulated impacts of the different GDP shocks on the agri-food sector are limited, which also conforms to reality.

 

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Impact of export restrictions on the Russian and Kazakhstani wheat markets during the COVID-19 pandemic

Anastasiya Kalinovskaya1, Sanat Seitov2

1 Dept. of World Economy, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian Federation

2 Dept. of Agroeconomics, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian Federation

 

Published Online: 2021-10-14 |

DOI: 10.36253/bae-12052

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of export restrictions on wheat and to propose policy measures to balance the interests of wheat producers and consumers in Russia and Kazakhstan. Grain export regulations in Russia and Kazakhstan had many similarities and implications, but there are also differences. The main problem in Russia was distortion of the market mechanism in the wheat trade due to the export quota. The former schedule of wheat shipments was disturbed, so long as exporters tried to get ahead of each other in filling the quota. Uncertainty on the Russian wheat market increased. A key problem in Kazakhstan was the unequal access of market participants to the export quota due to allowing only licensed elevators to export. Export restriction measures discriminated against small exporters and producers. This problem stems from the inefficient quota allocation mechanism. In addition, the quota of 200 thousand tons of grain per month was a small volume, as the available stocks allowed setting a larger quota or waiving it.