Challenges and Opportunities of Covid-19 in Agricultural Economy: The Case of Ethiopia

Abstract

The novel coronavirus is originated from the Wuhan state, Hubei province of China and exported to almost all countries of the world in the short period of time. Above all, it is common agenda for all individuals in the world by enforcing countries to lockdown borders, close education sectors, give commandments for civil servants to work in home, discouraging social interaction and informing about implementation of messages flowed by doctors, government and religious leaders to contain the pandemic to go forward for economic growth increase time. The objective of this review was to assess challenges and opportunities of Covid-19 in agricultural economy of Ethiopia using the methods of desk review. There are some challenges and opportunities discussed in this paper such as aggravation of food security, slowdown of service sectors, input delay, decline in foreign currency and unemployment are challenges whereas import substitution, innovation and modernization of agriculture are available opportunities for the country due to the pandemic. Even though challenges harming the hub sector of economy in the country, it opens avenues to build resilient agriculture sector that are less sensitive to shocks. To ensure this, Government has to consider multi- benefit based green economy, implement fiscal policy on tax cut and increasing government spending to stimulate agricultural production and safety net program and empowering health sectors needs due attention to the successfulness of agriculture and other sectors through collaborative hand of all stakeholders.

Keywords: Challenges, Coronavirus, Ethiopia, Opportunities, Resilience.

DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/65-03

Publication date:June 30^th 2020