Agriculture holding its own amidst COVID threats but ‘enormous uncertainties’ remain – FAO

Countries with strong agricultural bases are likely to be encouraged by the most recent assessment of the global food market released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which projects that the agri-foods sector is likely to continue to demonstrate a greater resilience in the face of the continued COVID-19 threat.

“Whilst COVID-19 has posed a serious threat to food security, overall, our analysis shows that from the global perspective, agricultural commodity markets are proving to be more resilient to the pandemic than many other sectors, the WHO says in its report released last week though it says that the size of the challenge and the “enormous uncertainties” associated with it requires that the international community “remain vigilant and ready to react if and when necessary.”

The FAO’s recent Food Outlook Report assesses global supply and demand for the world’s most traded commodities including cereals, oil crops, meat, dairy products, fish and sugar through to 2021. Its projections appear to point to a “comfortable cereals supply and demand situation with early prospects pointing to an increase of around 2.6 per cent on the previous year’s record cereal production.