Hirvonen Kalle, Minten Bart, Mohammed Belay, Tamru Seneshaw
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Addis Ababa Ethiopia.
International Growth Centre Addis Ababa Ethiopia.
Agric Econ. 2021 May;52(3):407-421. doi: 10.1111/agec.12626. Epub 2021 May 4.
It is widely feared that the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a significant worsening of the food security situation in low and middle-income countries. One reason for this is the disruption of food marketing systems and subsequent changes in farm and consumer prices. Based on primary data in Ethiopia collected just before the start and a few months into the pandemic, we assess changes in farm and consumer prices of four major vegetables and the contribution of different segments of the rural-urban value chain in urban retail price formation. We find large, but heterogeneous, price changes for different vegetables with relatively larger changes seen at the farm level, compared to the consumer level, leading to winners and losers among local vegetable farmers due to pandemic-related trade disruptions. We further note that despite substantial hurdles in domestic trade reported by most value chain agents, increases in marketing-and especially transportation-costs have not been the major contributor to overall changes in retail prices. Marketing margins even declined for half of the vegetables studied. The relatively small changes in marketing margins overall indicate the resilience of these domestic value chains during the pandemic in Ethiopia.
人们普遍担心，新冠疫情的冲击将导致低收入和中等收入国家的粮食安全状况显著恶化。原因之一是食品营销系统的中断以及随后农场和消费者价格的变化。基于在埃塞俄比亚疫情开始前及开始后的几个月收集的原始数据，我们评估了四种主要蔬菜的农场和消费者价格变化，以及城乡价值链不同环节在城市零售价格形成中的贡献。我们发现，不同蔬菜的价格变化幅度很大，但存在差异，与消费者层面相比，农场层面的价格变化相对更大，由于与疫情相关的贸易中断，当地菜农中有赢家也有输家。我们还注意到，尽管大多数价值链参与者报告称国内贸易存在重大障碍，但营销成本（尤其是运输成本）的增加并非零售价格总体变化的主要因素。在所研究的蔬菜中，有一半的营销利润率甚至下降了。总体而言，营销利润率相对较小的变化表明了埃塞俄比亚国内这些价值链在疫情期间的韧性。
