Strengthening Agricultural and Food Policy Response Strategies for Post-COVID-19 Recovery

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the world are adopting new policy measures at an unprecedented speed, including in areas such as monetary policy, trade restrictions, agricultural and food policies and changes in fiscal support. When analyzing the effects of COVID-19 on agri-food markets, most effort has gone into the monitoring of food prices at global level. However, governments lack evidence on how the rapidly changing policy environment is affecting domestic producer and consumer prices in agricultural value chains. In low- and middle-income countries, this is particularly important for staple crops such as rice, maize and wheat. Not only do these products constitute the main source of calories for the world’s poorer households, but, importantly, they are also produced by large numbers of smallholder farmers and represent a high share of agricultural GDP in low- and middle-income countries.