Agrifood markets and support in the United States after 1 year of COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article briefly outlines the agrifood market and policy situation in the United States after 1 year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Agrifood markets suffered initial disruptions from both supply-side and demand-side shocks but significant adjustments by farmers, processors, distributors, and government kept these relatively shorty-lived. Substantial support has been provided to farmers as part of $5 trillion of economy-wide stimulus enacted. This included payments in 2020 under the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) of nearly $24 billion to producers of a wide array of products. These payments came on top of trade-related support provided to agriculture in 2018 and 2019. The stimulus also included expansion of nutrition assistance programs for low-income households which were among the hardest hit by the pandemic. I conjecture that the pandemic will influence planning and social policy across the US economy for years to come but will not shift the basic structure of US agricultural production and distribution. Counter-cyclical farm policy is reentrenched within the political arena and expectations for support levels may have been raised.