Impacts of COVID-19 on the Food Supply Chain: A Case Study on Saudi Arabia

Regional Agriculture and Food Systems Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of the Near East and North Africa Region

The COVID-19 pandemic affected agri-food systems worldwide. However, while the impacts differed from one country/region to another, the scholarly literature seems to focus on developed countries in the Global North. Consequently, this review scrutinizes the literature on the pandemic's impacts in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region. A search on the Web of Science in March 2023 generated 334 documents, of which 151 were eligible for inclusion in the systematic review. According to the bibliometric analysis, the most active nations are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon. In general, the coverage of studies is better in the Gulf region than in the less developed countries of North Africa and those suffering from wars (cf. Libya, Syria, and Yemen). Studies generally focus on crop production and the downstream food chain (cf. distribution and consumption). While the pandemic influenced every pillar of food security, this research concentrates on access and utilization. Meanwhile, the lion's share of the literature deals with the pandemic's socio-economic effects, especially those linked to food (in)security and health. The pandemic, which laid bare the agri-food system vulnerabilities, should be seized to foster the transition towards more resilient agri-food systems in the NENA region.

Triple-crises-induced food insecurity: systematic understanding and resilience building approaches in Africa

The triple crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict and climate change have severely impacted food systems, leading to socio-economic consequences and undermining food and nutrition security across Africa. To address the malnutrition and poverty affecting approximately 700 million people in Africa, there is potential for the One Health approach implementation and operationalization to bring together multidisciplinary solutions for tackling food insecurity and ensuring food safety net. However, there is limited documentation on the potential of the One Health approach system thinking implementation to guide responses to triple crises-induced food insecurity. Therefore, this article aims to systematically understand the triple crises-induced food insecurity, connect existing solutions, and explore the role of the One Health approach in strengthening food and agriculture systems in Africa. Our finding showed the impact of triple crises exacerbating food system vulnerability in Africa and worldwide. Mitigating and resilient actions are urgently needed in tackling the emerging and persisting challenges, and infectious diseases menace and burden across Africa. We present a conceptual model illustrating the complex nature of triple crises-induced food insecurity, vulnerability areas within the food system, and actionable strategies for building community food resilience. Additionally, recommendations are provided to create an enabling environment that supports One Health approach implementation and addresses food insecurity challenges through innovative partnerships, local-led initiatives, and enhanced governance and artificial intelligence technology capacities in achieving sustainable and inclusive growth to reduce socio-economic inequalities. Stepping up integrated, actionable, and sustainable food systems programs and innovative long-lasting solutions requires investing in promoting new partnership and research collaboration in building conflict resolution and peace towards strengthening and reshaping local and global food security related climate change adaptations actions for most vulnerable communities' benefits. These are ingredients in fastening preparedness, prevention and control of infectious diseases prevention and control, reducing food supply chains disruption towards accelerating equitable benefits of Universal Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goals, 2030 across Africa.

A review on post-COVID-19 impacts and opportunities of agri-food supply chain in Malaysia

Background

Malaysia is strongly supported by the agriculture sector as the backbone to drive the economy. However, COVID-19 has significantly affected agriculture across the production, supply, and marketing chains. It also disturbs the balance of food supply and demand in Malaysia. COVID-19 was an unexpected pandemic that resulted in shock and panic and caused a huge global impact. However, the impacts of this pandemic on the agriculture sector in Malaysia, particularly in the production and supply chains, are still unclear and scarce. This review offers insights into the challenges, particularly in sustaining agri-food production and supply chains. It also highlights the opportunity and relevant measures towards sustainability in agriculture to avoid agri-food disasters in the future.

Methods

This study was carried out through a desk review of the secondary source of information covering the impact of COVID-19 in Malaysia particularly in the agri-food aspect, and a wide range of strategies and initiatives as the effective measures to overcome the crisis of this pandemic. Online desk research of the government published data and customer desk research were utilized to complete this study. Search engines such as Google Scholar and the statistical data from the official websites including the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) and the Food and Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian and Pacific Region (FFTC-AP), were utilized. Keywords such as impact of COVID-19, pandemic, and agri-food supply chain were used to conduct the searches. The articles identified to be related to the study's objective were then downloaded and included in the study. Descriptive methods were used as the primary analysis technique following the descriptive analysis and visual data analysis in performing the sources obtained.

Results

This devastating impact damages the lives by causing 4.3 million confirmed infections and more than 290,000 deaths. This disease presents an unprecedented challenge to the public health. The lockdown restriction under the movement control order (MCO), for more than of the world's population in the year 2020 to control the virus from spreading, has disrupted most of the economic sectors. The agriculture industry was seen as one of the essential industries and allowed to operate under strict standard operating procedures (SOP). Working under strict regulations came with a huge price paid for almost all industries.

Conclusion

This pandemic has affected the national agri-food availability and accessibility in Malaysia. This outbreak created a reflection of opportunity for sharing a more flexible approaches in handling emergencies on agricultural food production and supply chains. Therefore, the government should be ready with the roadmap and enforce the measures to control the pandemic without disrupting the agri-food supply chain in the near future.

Research on Extension Design of Emergency Cold Chain Logistics from the Perspective of Carbon Constraints

Extenics has unique advantages in solving contradictions by using formal models to explore the possibility of expanding things and the laws and methods of development and innovation. This paper studies the specific application of the extension strategy generation method in emergency cold chain logistics, in order to solve the problem that the emergency plan is difficult to cover in the face of an emergency. The purpose of this paper is to provide ideas for the generation of strategies to solve the contradictions of cold chain logistics in complex emergency scenarios. Giving full play to the unique advantages of extenics in solving contradictory problems, this paper analyzes the core problems, objectives and conditions of emergency cold chain logistics in four links with the case scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, extends and generates 10 measures to form 36 schemes, and evaluates the combination schemes quantitatively and objectively using the dependent function and superiority evaluation formula. In addition, the consideration of carbon constraints is added to the selection of the scheme, and the specific plan of integrating e-commerce platform, expert guidance, establishing temporary cold storage transfer and contactless distribution is designed. The research results provide support for meeting the needs of emergency logistics schemes in different situations and optimizing the energy efficiency of the scheme while ensuring humanitarian support. At the same time, the application of extenics basic-element formal language also provides a reference for further applying artificial intelligence to the design of emergency logistics schemes.

What Type of Households in Mongolia Are Most Hit by COVID-19?

The study aims to validate the measures taken by the government of Mongolia against COVID-19 and to analyse the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the livelihood of different types of households. The survey covers 362 households consisting of five different types, namely, apartment households, ger district households, herder households, vegetable growing households, and small farmer households. Principal component analysis is used to reduce the number of variables to a few factors that best explain the variation in the variables. Two to three components were found from the principal component analyses that describe (i) government policy, (ii) challenges due to COVID-19, and (iii) risk and vulnerability that occurred due to COVID-19. Multiple regression models attributed by the household’s type were used to analyse the impact of the selected variables on the households’ income. According to the regression results, herding households are the least affected, compared to the other four types of households. The government measures to mitigate the negative impacts of COVID-19 have better results for apartment households and ger district households. Rural households are less affected and seem to be more resilient to COVID-19 shocks than other households.