Department of Economics and Economic Policy in Agribusiness, Faculty of Economics, Poznan University of Life Sciences, Poznan, Poland.
Department of Economics and Organisation of Enterprises, Institute of Economics and Finance, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
PLoS One. 2024 Apr 17;19(4):e0302072. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302072. eCollection 2024.
The aim of the paper is to provide an ex-post assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food insecurity in the EU-27 countries expressed by physical and economic food access. We analysed trade and price effects, together with food insecurity and malnutrition indicators. Actual levels of the indicators were compared with their pre-pandemic magnitudes and/or with counterfactual levels derived from predictive models. We also aimed to compare the objective statistics with the subjective consumers' perception of their households' food security. Our research indicates that the EU food trade was more resilient to COVID-19 impacts than the trade in non-food products, while food trade decreases were of a temporary nature. This did not affect the trade balance significantly; however, the import reduction threatened the physical food access in most EU countries. Regarding economic food access, the results indicate that the increase in food prices was offset by the increase in disposable income. It may suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly affect the deterioration of economic access to food in the EU countries. However, the prevalence of severe food insecurity in the total population or the proportion of households reporting inability to afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish, or a vegetarian equivalent increased in 2020-2021 compared to 2019. This means that the comparative analysis of the real data on prices and households' income, as well as consumer financial situation and food consumption affordability, does not offer a clear answer concerning the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food security of EU households.
本文旨在对 COVID-19 大流行对欧盟 27 个国家的粮食不安全状况（以实物和经济粮食获取为表现形式）的影响进行事后评估。我们分析了贸易和价格效应，以及粮食不安全和营养不良指标。实际指标水平与大流行前的水平进行了比较，或者与预测模型得出的反事实水平进行了比较。我们还旨在将客观统计数据与消费者对其家庭粮食安全的主观感受进行比较。我们的研究表明，与非食品产品贸易相比，欧盟食品贸易对 COVID-19 影响的抵御能力更强，而食品贸易的下降是暂时的。这并没有对贸易平衡产生重大影响；然而，进口减少威胁到大多数欧盟国家的实物粮食获取。关于经济粮食获取，结果表明，食品价格的上涨被可支配收入的增加所抵消。这可能表明 COVID-19 大流行并未显著影响欧盟国家经济获取粮食的恶化。然而，与 2019 年相比，2020-2021 年总人口中严重粮食不安全的比例或报告无法负担一顿有肉、鸡、鱼或素食等价物的膳食的家庭比例有所增加。这意味着对价格和家庭收入的实际数据、消费者的财务状况和粮食消费承受能力进行比较分析，并不能就 COVID-19 大流行对欧盟家庭粮食安全的影响提供明确答案。
