COVID-19 Impact on Romania’s Agri-Food Trade: Opportunity or Threat

Abstract

Abstract The COVID-19 virus has led to a globally general panic, followed by social and economic decline especially in 2020, but with consequences also extending to 2021. However, worldwide the agrifood sector has been only slightly affected due the fact that is a strategic sector, of major importance, and the global value chains have worked through the innovative solutions and the agility of producers, distributors and retailers. Governments have also played an important role through concrete measures to support the agri-food sector. The objective of this paper is to analyze COVID-19 impact and to highlight the effects on Romania’s agri-food trade. The analyzed period is 2010-2020, but with a particular focus on the last two closed years, 2019 and 2020 (before the pandemic and during the pandemic). The results show that the coronavirus pandemic was not an opportunity for the Romanian agri-food sector, as the value of exports decreased in 2020 compared to 2019, due government’s decision from 10 April 2020 to ban grain exports outside the EU. Another determining factor that caused these negative results in 2020 was the severe drought and the sensitivity due to rudimentary agricultural practices, lack of automation, lack of modern equipment and innovation. On this negative background the agri-food trade deficit increased.