Although the 2019-nCoV epidemic is primarily a public health crisis, experts are already voicing their concerns that the virus could have a much broader impact on the Chinese and global economy, leading to worldwide socio-economic disruptions.

China is also the world’s biggest trading nation, deeply entrenched in global trade through a multitude of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements.

Although the share of agriculture, including forestry and fisheries in the country’s GDP, is declining, its contribution to national GDP was 7.19 per cent in 2018. The country’s exports and imports cover destinations and sources spanning all regions of the world, and agriculture and food constitute a significant share of China’s trade portfolio. This has subsequently raised questiona about the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic on the agriculture supply and demand side, in China and abroad, with possible ripple effects on food prices and markets.

Assessing the impact on the agriculture sector is, therefore, premature and only speculative at this stage. It will depend on how long the health emergency lasts, and restrictive measures remain in place, before businesses can resume normal operations.

Learning from the past and similar public health emergencies, restrictions on the movement of goods and people can have significant socio-economic repercussions on people’s livelihoods, going beyond the direct impact on health and affecting the most vulnerable groups. While these restrictions are necessary to limit the spread of a disease, they often lead to disruption of market chains and trade of agricultural products, with significant potential impacts on the populations that depend on them for their livelihoods and their food and nutrition security.

In such cases, local economies are often the hardest hit, as businesses remain shuttered and consumers hunkered down in their homes. Most affected might be medium-sized companies and small businesses, as supply chains of their products are disrupted due to restrictions on transportation and people’s movements. This current coronavirus epidemic is also happening in the aftermath of the African Swine Fever (ASF) epidemic that started in August 2018 and affected the Chinese pig industry severely, leading to an increase in prices for consumers and income losses for smallholder farmers.