Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the food supply chain and thus threatened the food security of many people, while the impact of the pandemic on food consumption of people living in rural areas is still unknown. This study filled in the research gaps by employing a three-wave food consumption survey from 2019 to 2021 conducted in rural China. We adopted a random effect model and Poisson regression to quantify the short-run and long-run impacts of COVID-19 on rural households’ food consumption and dietary quality. We found that rural households increased the consumption of vegetables, aquaculture products and legumes in the short-run, and these changes in consumption behavior even lasted 1 year after lockdown was lifted. However, the positive impact was much smaller in households not engaged in agricultural production. In addition, our results showed that COVID-19 decreased dietary diversity but increased dietary quality for households still engaged in food-related agriculture production. Our study indicated that COVID-19 did not threaten the food security status of rural families in China. On the contrary, rural families, particularly those still engaged in agricultural production, increased the consumption of several foods to strengthen their resistance against the virus.
Highlights
The outbreak and rapid spread of COVID-19 has led to numerous changes in our daily life
This study quantified the impact of COVID-19 on food consumption and dietary quality of rural households using both pre- and post-pandemic food consumption surveys conducted in Jiangsu, China
We found that dietary diversity decreased slightly both in the short-run and long-run, but CFPS increased in the post pandemic period for households who were still engaged in at least one food-related agricultural production
Summary
The outbreak and rapid spread of COVID-19 has led to numerous changes in our daily life. To delay and halt the spread of infectious disease, most government have implemented various preventive measures such as lockdown, transportation restriction, and social distancing [1,2]. Those measures effectively contribute to the prevention and control of viral transmission [3,4], but at the cost of a strong negative impact on production and consumption [5]. Several studies revealed that consumers preferred to choose healthy, safe, and better-quality food products during the pandemic [24,25,26], and COVID-19 would contribute to a more sustainable, healthier era of food consumption in the future [27]. Studies from Chile [28], Greece [29], the UK [30], and several other countries [31] found that people increased the consumption of unhealthy foods such as snacks and pre-packaged “ultra-processed” foods high in fats, sugars and salt during home confinement [32], as those foods had longer shelf life and were easier to access
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
