Agrifood trade policies in Europe and Central Asia during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

FAO’s Chief Economist, Máximo Torero, and the Director of Strategy, Simplification and Policy Analysis at the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, Tassos Hanniotis, participated in a discussion on COVID-19 impacts on agri-food trade organized by the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Mr Hanniotis talked about the success of EU measures taken to support the protection of jobs as food consumption shifted from consumption in the restaurant sector to consumption at home. “The EU Commission's green corridors measures to alleviate movement restrictions on goods between EU Member States, including food products were hugely successful,” he said.

 Mr Torero highlighted the recession COVID-19 might generate and its socio-economic consequences, for example, increasing numbers of undernourished people in the world. It is calculated that an additional 83 to 132 million people might go hungry because of the pandemic, while global GDP is expected to drop by an estimated 4.4 percent for 2020-2021. Restrictions impacting imports and exports, such as those on maritime transportation, were also discussed at the event.

The conversation referred to recent data released by the FAO report on the State of Agricultural Commodity Market (SOCO2020).