How Coronavirus Impacted Agriculture Worldwide
FarmBiz|June 2020
Just as the South African agricultural sector started to win the fight against the 2019 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, the coronavirus jumped in to change society in ways we could not imagine.
Claudi Nortje
How Coronavirus Impacted Agriculture Worldwide

President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the coronavirus a national disaster on Sunday, 15 March 2020, as the number of confirmed COVID-19 started to climb locally.

Besides its health aspect, the global spread of the virus has had a devastating effect on multiple industries, economies and also the global agricultural sector.

The World Health Organization's (WHO) declaration of the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic in February, resulted in governments increasing their containment measures. As a result, the global market lost in excess of $6 trillion in just six days during late February, mirroring economic conditions last seen in the 2008 global recession.

SA’s agricultural outlook

In a press release on the issue, Omri van Zyl of Agri SA stated that South Africa’s agricultural sector exports approximately 25 commodities with a value of $10 billion on an annual basis. In the short term, he said, supply chain and logistical disruptions would harm export-driven agricultural sectors.

Agbiz in turn reported that the lowered demand from Asian countries could also damage the South African export market. Asian countries account for 25% of South African agricultural exports and import products such as wool, fruit, grains, red meat, vegetables and beverages.

China takes up 8% of global agricultural imports and is the second biggest importer in the world. Japan is responsible for 4% of global agricultural imports and is the sixth biggest importer in the world. South Korea and Hong Kong collectively account for 4% of global agriculture imports.

This story is from the June 2020 edition of FarmBiz.

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This story is from the June 2020 edition of FarmBiz.

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