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MoneyWeb reported on food help needed in Africa. As efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus continue, millions of Africans are struggling to afford basic foodstuffs. David Laborde, a senior research fellow at IFPRI said, “African people are missing income to buy food. We are dealing with the number of poor people in Africa that we’ve never seen before. You are […]

Relief Web reports on the recent World Food Program report. The report focused on targeting and prioritization of impoverished and food-insecure populations affected by COVID-19. This report quotes Stuart Gillespie and Alan Whiteside’s IFPRI blog on How COVID-19 may impact food and nutrition security as well as David Laborde, Will Martin, and Rob Vos’s IFPRI blog on Growth of poverty and food insecurity. Republished in Nigeria News Shafaqna.

Kapitalis (Tunisia) reported on the economic toll COVID-19 lockdowns have had on Tunisia. The article discusses an IFPRI policy note that states the empirical data used are very credible since it comes from the Tunisian Institute for Competitiveness and Quantitative Studies (ITCEQ). The authors used simulation techniques at the cutting edge of econometric methods. Weeks of confinement in […]

Agro Negocios Peru reported on fluctuating coffee prices. The article quoted from the joint ICO and IFPRI study, Volatile coffee prices: Covid-19 and fundamentals. “The new coronavirus represents a joint and unprecedented shock to supply and demand in the global coffee sector, and constitutes a huge challenge for coffee producers, agricultural workers, and members of the first stages of the chain […]

EPRS published an article on the food supply during the pandemic. The article quoted IFPRI’s research stating that as of 25 May 2020, 11 countries apply active binding food export restrictions, among them Kazakhstan (buckwheat, sugar, etc.), Russia (wheat, rye, barley, etc.) and Ukraine (buckwheat, buckwheat grain).  

Sahara Reporters in an article on trade and restrictions featured Senior Research Fellow Antoine Bouët who said, “Although governments across the region have said food items are among a list of essential items that can move freely, most of the trade in the country is done informally and in small quantities. Very often, these measures consist of the screening of trucks crossing the border […]

AllAfrica.com reported on a two-day webinar hosted by the African Development Institute (ADI) has urged African countries to expand their food reserves, keep food supply flowing and boost their agriculture budgets to avert a possible hunger pandemic, partly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The webinar, organized in partnership with the African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE), featured […]

Radio France International published an article about Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s call to farmers. He said, “We don’t have money to import so we must produce what we have to eat.” Kwaw Andam, director of the Nigeria Strategy Support Program said, in a recent IFPRI report that “food supply was exempted from most restrictions during the height of the lockdown […]

Central Radio and Television International Online (China) interviewed Senior Research Fellow Joseph Glauber in a three-part video interview. The first, on the needs of food systems today, Glauber said, “What we’ve seen over the last few months is the need for flexibility in the food system and technology to protect the food systems against biosafety issues like the coronavirus.” In a subsequent interview, […]

Reuters published an article on what traders in West Africa are confronting because of restrictions imposed by governments in response to COVID-19 that are crippling the informal trade in perishable goods and livestock like never before. Senior Research Fellow Antoine Bouët stated, “That informality makes it especially vulnerable to coronavirus restrictions, even when governments carve out exemptions for trade. Very often, these measures consist of the screening of trucks […]