Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on the food supply chain

Abstract

This study’s objective was to analyze institutions’ role in positioning Brazil to reduce uncertainties in food supplies related to COVID-19. We intend to demonstrate that food security must be integrated with food safety. This research is an exploratory study of COVID-19’s effects on food systems using qualitative data. This study demonstrates that public and private policies carried out at the international level are needed to avoid new health crises originated by zoonoses. The integration of public and private policies requires the following strategies: building strong institutions, strengthening the agricultural research and innovation system, public policies for sustainable agriculture, strict sanitary control laws, enhancing cold chains of animal protein production, and encouraging the vertical integration model in animal protein chains. This analytical scheme can be applied in the context of agro-industrial systems from an institutional perspective, allowing research into the effect of crises on agri-food supply chains, as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as contributing to its prevention. It was found that demands to prevent new pandemics are: an outgrowth of the effective adoption of standard sanitary controls; coordination of agri-food systems; and public policies.