WillAgri
In response to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on agriculture and food, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will spend $15.5 billion in the initial phase to help farmers. This is just the beginning of assistance to avoid shortages as one slaughterhouse after another closes, dairy farmers spill their milk and farmers desperately look for labor.
The European Commission, for its part, announced on 2 April a number of measures to help the agri-food sector. These are essentially measures to introduce “exceptional” flexibility in the use of funds from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), such as the granting of loans or guarantees on favourable terms to cover operational costs of up to €200,000 for a farmer,
In China, among other measures, the government has reduced the cost of credit guarantees and has allocated $200 million to avoid an agricultural disaster in major crops such as rice and wheat.. As for Africa, the African Union (AU) has not yet announced a continental plan. The Ministers of Agriculture of the different countries and the FAO are discussing the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security and nutrition in Africa.
Source: CommodAfrica