Food prices, processing, and shocks: Evidence from rice and COVID‐19

Abstract

Rice is the staple food for about half of the world's population and mills are the essential processing link between farmers and consumers, making rice milling one of the most important agro‐processing sectors globally. This paper assesses changes in rice and paddy prices, and processing margins during the COVID‐19 pandemic shock through the lens of rice mills in Myanmar. Our data, collected through telephone surveys with a large number of medium‐ and large‐scale rice millers in September 2020, reveal significant disruptions from the COVID‐19 pandemic, including transportation restrictions, employee lay‐offs, and reduced operations relative to normal times. However, milling margins, and paddy and rice prices were mostly stable, showing only minor increases compared to 2019. Rice prices increased most for the varieties linked to export markets, though the gains were mostly passed through to farmers as higher paddy prices. Similarly, higher rice prices achieved by modern mills—due to extra processing—were mostly transmitted to producers. Our results also highlight the major importance of byproducts—broken rice and rice bran—sales to overall milling margins as byproduct sales allowed mill operators to sustain negative paddy‐to‐rice margins.

European Union Agri-Food Prices During Covid-19 and Their Seleceted Determinants

“…In the short term, supply disruptions and increased demand have led to higher retail food prices, although not for all categories (e.g., in the European Union (EU): Akter, 2020). Export restrictions resulted, in turn, in increased world prices for cereals and, in some cases, their products (Goeb et al, 2021). However, certain studies (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], 2020; Kowalczyk, 2020;Szajner, 2020) indicate that global prices of some agricultural commodities declined during the pandemic.…”

Perceptions of Transportation Services and Food Indexes in the US: An Investigation of Dynamic Connectedness

“…Coluccia et al (2021) presented that as well as Covid-19 impact was observed in the agri-food demand and whole changes of supply chain activity's reaction depending on the pandemic restrictions of countries, its effects reflected logistics and transportation services so its effects reflected logistics and transportation services. Goeb et al (2021) explained the changes in rice prices, relating to the disruptions of transportation for reaching the consumer.…”

“…M.A.Beyzatlar -E. Yılmaz İzmir İktisat Dergisi / İzmir Journal of Economics Yıl/Year:2022 Cilt/Vol:37 Sayı/No:3 Doi:10.24988/ije.1058303 705 Recent studies in the literature have also revealed that the Covid-19 outbreak causes some important changes in the food supply chain in terms of transportation of goods and services depending on restrictions Chitrakar et al (2021),Coluccia et al (2021),Goeb et al (2021),. Hobbs (2020),Singh et al.…”

Impacts of COVID-19 on Nutritional Intake in Rural China: Panel Data Evidence

“…The channels through which the pandemic affects food and nutrition security comprise all four pillars of food security. Food availability and stability are affected by a lack of workers [16], delays in agricultural work [17], an increase in the price of food and materials [18][19][20][21], and trade restrictions [22]. Moreover, major threats to food access and utilization posed by COVID-19 are the loss of household income, reduced purchasing power [23][24][25], and supply chain disruptions caused by lockdown measures [26][27][28].…”