JAE, 2022: Report of the Editor‐in‐Chief

Submissions to the Journal have stabilised since the Covid‐related surge in 2020, and continue their strong international pattern. Our response times continue to meet or exceed our targets, with a few regrettable exceptions, for which our sincere apologies. The JAE's citation impact factor increased again in 2021 to 4.16, a modest increase from the 2020 score. Our total 2‐year citations, however, show a worrying decline since last year. Our sincere thanks are due to our authors and our many reviewers for their contributions. Wiley continue to provide a strong publishing platform with our full archive, generating continuing growth in downloads.

E‐commerce and supply chain resilience during COVID‐19: Evidence from agricultural input e‐stores in China

COVID‐19 has caused major disruptions to agricultural supply chains around the world. Researchers and policy‐makers are interested in identifying means to reduce the disruptive effects caused by the pandemic. We investigate the impacts of COVID‐19 on the operation of e‐commerce stores (in short, e‐stores) specialising in agricultural inputs. The difference‐in‐differences method (DID) is employed to estimate the causal relationship between COVID‐19 and online sales of agricultural inputs using data from 54,244 agricultural input e‐stores registered in 118 prefecture‐level cities across 15 provinces and hosted on two major Chinese e‐commerce platforms. The results show that COVID‐19 led to a substantial growth in monthly sales of agricultural input e‐stores, and this growth of online sales varied across store scales and by types of agricultural inputs. In particular, e‐stores selling seeds and seedlings experienced a larger growth in sales than stores selling agricultural machinery and implements, and the mid‐ and larger‐scaled e‐stores experienced more growth of sales than micro‐ and small‐scaled e‐stores. Further analysis reveals that the growth of online sales of agricultural inputs was driven mainly by an increase in the quantity of customer orders (QCO). The findings of this paper underscore the importance of e‐commerce in ensuring the resilience of the agricultural supply chain during the pandemic period.

Disentangling Short-Run COVID-19 Price Impact Pathways in the US Corn Market

Despite this focus on pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, fewer empirical studies have sought to isolate short-term price impacts in food and nonfood agricultural commodity markets.1 Understanding the drivers of short-term commodity price impacts is critical to understanding future susceptibility to major market shocks and to informing policies related to shock mitigation. Declines in ethanol production reached an estimated 2 billion gallons lost from March to November 2020, leading to a corresponding decline of 700 million bushels of corn usage and a loss of billions of dollars of ethanol producer surplus (Renewable Fuels Association, 2020b;Schmitz, Moss, and Schmitz, 2020). Increases in corn-based ethanol production that started in 2005 have linked agricultural commodity prices and energy markets as US ethanol production increased rapidly from 3.9 billion gallons in 2005 to 13.3 billion by 2010 and 15.8 billion by 2019 (Chakravorty, Hubert, and Nøstbakken, 2009;Wright, 2011;Roberts and Schlenker, 2013;Asgari, Saghaian, and Reed, 2020;US Department of Agriculture, 2021). Given that over 90% of US ethanol is used in mixtures of E10 gasoline and the US market reached a 10% "blend wall" in 2016, any reduction in gasoline use will cause proportional decreases in ethanol use (US Energy Information Administrationa, 2020;US Department of Agriculture, 2021).

Sustainability assessment of crops' production in India: empirical evidence from ARDL-ECM approach

PurposeThe study aims to evaluate the long- vs short-run relationships between crops' production (output) and crops' significant inputs such as land use, agricultural water use (AWU) and gross irrigated area in India during the period 1981–2018.Design/methodology/approachThe study applied the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to estimate the co-integration among the variables. The study uses the error correction model (ECM), which integrates the short-run dynamics with the long-run equilibrium.FindingsThe ARDL bounds test of co-integration confirms the strong evidence of the long-run relationship among the variables. Empirical results show the positive and significant relationship of crops' production with land use and gross irrigated area. The statistically significant error correction term (ECT) validates the speed of adjustment of the empirical models in the long-run.Research limitations/implicationsThe study suggests that the decision-makers must understand potential trade-offs between human needs and environmental impacts to ensure food for the growing population in India.Originality/valueFor a clear insight into the impact of climate change on crops' production, the current study incorporates the climate variables such as annual rainfall, maximum temperature and minimum temperature. Further, the study considered agro-chemicals, i.e. fertilizers and pesticides, concerning their negative impacts on increased agricultural production and the environment.

COVID‐19 and consumer behavior: Food stockpiling in the U.S. market

The emergence of the COVID‐19 pandemic has brought radical changes in consumer spending patterns. One aspect of this change is food stockpiling detected in several countries. Using a univariate probit model, this paper relies on the COVID‐19 Impact Survey (2020) for American households to assess the likelihood of consumers stockpiling food in response to the stringent lockdown measures imposed by the government's pandemic regulations. Our findings reveal a set of significant correlations between marital status, age, race, occupation, household structure, and the propensity of stockpiling food during the pandemic. Furthermore, the results show that residents in urban areas are more likely to engage in food stockpiling compared with residents in rural and suburban areas. The paper also examines the nexus between residence areas, lockdown measures, and the probability of stockpiling food. This research reveals a significant association between psychological factors and the likelihood of stockpiling food in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic [EconLit Citations: D12, H12, I18, P25].

The Achilles heel of the U.S. food industries: Exposure to labor and upstream industries in the supply chain

The modern‐day food industries are part of a complex agri‐food supply chain, where food production has become efficient yet potentially vulnerable to supply chain risks. The COVID‐19 pandemic is a testament to that end. This article measures and identifies the U.S. food manufacturing industries' vulnerability to upstream industries and labor occupations by (a) calculating a food industry's diversification of intermediate input purchases across upstream industries, (b) quantifying the relative exposure of food manufacturing in a given industry and location to upstream input suppliers and labor occupations, and (c) estimating each food industry's gross output elasticity of inputs. This article also explores geographic heterogeneity in food industries' vulnerability. Among our results, we find evidence that the animal processing industry's output is relatively vulnerable to production labor, consistent with the observed disruptions to the meatpacking sector during COVID‐19, which were largely caused by labor issues. Our results may help academics and practitioners to understand food industries' vulnerabilities to upstream industries and labor occupations.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THE ECONOMIC RESULTS OF AGRICULTURE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought numerous economic challenges to countries around the world. The specificities of certain economy sectors determined the character and intensity of the impact of this health crisis on their results. The purpose of the paper is to analyse the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the economic results of agriculture in the European Union countries. Comparative analysis and cluster analysis are used in the research. The general conclusion of the paper is that the Covid-19 pandemic did not change the economic importance and role of agriculture in the individual European Union countries. In addition, the European Union countries differ significantly according to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the contribution of agriculture to gross domestic product, while a significant difference between the countries has not been determined according to the impact of the pandemic on the contribution of agriculture to employment.

DRY SPA AS A FACTOR OF RURAL DESTINATION DEVELOPMENT

If we look at the energy as something that is all around us, then it is clear that energy as such can be used even for the purpose of tourism. Sofia's springs is the dry spa which is located in the national park and the fields with the strongest positive radiation in the world are the phenomenon. Whether this is a placebo effect or a real effect of bio energy circles, this location has the potential to attract "health tourists" from all over the world. The research took the whole 7 years, during which we analyzed motives and views of 687 foreign visitors of these springs who came to the springs by bicycles from 6 European countries. The analysis showed that the visitors believe that the dry spa helps them in solving health problems, including Covid-19, which invites medical science to examine it in detail and confirm or reject it. Anyways, that represents a backbone of health tourism development and can directly influence the rural destination development.

Agriculture, food and global value chains: issues, methods and challenges

About one-third of trade in food and agriculture takes place within global value chains (GVC). Coffee, palm oil or biofuels production are examples of the modern organization of agri-food production through GVC (de Becker, Miroudot, 2014;Greenville et al., 2016;Baliè et al., 2019). Agricultural raw materials nowadays may cross borders many times before reaching the final consumers, as they are embedded in intermediate and processed goods which are produced in different countries. Agri-food GVC are typically characterized by a strong coordination between farmers, food processors or traders, and between processors and retailers. Value chain coordination can be initiated by downstream buyers, such as supermarkets and food processors, or by upstream suppliers including farmers or farmer cooperatives (Swinnen and Maertens, 2007;Reardon et al 2007). In a number of cases, a group of “lead firms” plays a critical role by defining the terms of supply chain membership and whom the value is added (Scoppola, 2021). The growth of the agri-food GVC raises new issues for the agricultural and food sectors. Participating to the GVC is expected to have several positive effects, both for countries and farmers, in terms of technology and knowledge spillovers, increased productivity, growth, employment opportunities, and ultimately increase of farmers’ income. On the other hand, market concentration in agri-food GVC raises concerns related to the emergence of market power (Swinnen, Vandeplas, 2014). Further, there are concerns that producing for agri-food GVC may result in the intensification of agricultural production, with negative environmental effects in terms of deployment of natural resources and water stress. Sound knowledge and evidence about the nature and implications of modern agri-food GVC are relevant for policymaker, firms and civil society. The economic analysis of agri-food GVC challenges agricultural and food economists in several respects. The complex nature of GVC and of the issues they raise makes it essential the use of new and multiple lens of analysis (World Bank, 2020). Country-level (macro) approaches to GVC are needed to investigate the drivers of the world-wide fragmentation of agri-food production and the welfare implications of countries participating to GVC. Recent progresses in the empirical trade analysis of GVC are certainly fundamental to the understanding of agri-food GVC. Industry level (meso) approaches are needed to investigate the relationship among the various stages of the GVC. Analytical tools and approaches from the industrial organization literature are to be used to investigate issues such the price transmission along the agri-food GVC, the drivers of vertical coordination or the distributions of benefits along the GVC. A firm level approach (micro) is needed to investigate the implications of the participation to GVC for farmers. The 10th AIEAA Annual Conference contributes to this debate, by putting together different disciplines and approaches to the analysis of agri-food GVC and of their implications in terms of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Three keynotes explore these issues from different perspectives. The keynotes by Silvia Nenci Ilaria Fusacchia, Anna Giunta, Pierluigi Montalbano and Carlo Pietrobelli entitled Mapping global value chain participation and positioning in agriculture and food (Nenci et al., 2022) reviews key methods and data issues arising in country-level analyses of GVC. They overall conclude that improvements in GVC measurements and mapping are currently still severely limited by data availability. Empirical literature to date mostly uses global Input-Output matrices and aggregate trade data to map and measure GVCs;however, sectoral and country coverage remains rather weak. They further review recent evidence about trends of GVC, by using the GVC participation indicator and the upstreamness positioning indicator (measuring the distance of the sector from final demand in terms of the number of production stages) for two sectors, that is “Agriculture” and “Food and Beverages”. They show that at the country level, GVC participation is globally around 30-35 percent for both agriculture and food and beverages;while GVC linkages in agriculture are mostly forward linked, food and beverages are much more in the middle and at the end of a value chain. Furthermore, they show that, unsurprisingly, agriculture has a higher score on upstreamness with respect to the food and beverages sector. They conclude by discussing some critical issues faced by agriculture and food GVC concerning trade policies, technological innovation and the COVID crises. The keynote by Tim Lloyd entitled “Price transmission and imperfect competition in the food industry” aims at providing insights on how information is conveyed by means of prices between food consumers and agricultural producers along the agri-food value chains. After presenting some basic insights from theory, the keynote addresses the issue of how to detect the degree of market power by reviewing theory-consistent empirical models as well as the approaches developed in the New Empirical Industrial Organisation literature. The increased use of highly detailed retail (‘scanner’) data reveals that the food industry (retailing, manufacturing, and processing) is a major source of the price changes and that it also mediates price signals originating in other parts of the food chain in increasingly nuanced ways;the author concludes that agricultural and food economists should be wary of inferring too much about the competitive setting based on prices alone. The keynote by Miet Maertens entitled “A review of global and local food value chains in Africa: Supply chain linkages and sustainability” highlights the expansion of agri-food GVC in low- and middle-income countries and how GVC are modernizing rapidly through institutional, technical, and commercial innovations. While a large body of literature focusses on the development implications of participation in GVC, the development of local food supply chains in low- and middle-income countries has received less attention. The review assesses potential linkages between global and local value chains in African countries, and the sustainability outcomes of supply chain innovations. The keynotes emphasizes that market competition as well competition for land, labour, water, and other resources may create negative linkages between the development of global and local food value chains. Spill-over effects, such as investment, technical or institutional spillovers, may create positive linkages and complementarities in the process of supply chain development. The existence of such linkages importantly depends on the type of crop and the structure and organisation of supply chains and entail important consequences towards socio-economic and environmental sustainability.

The Role of Community Food Services in Reducing US Food Insufficiency in the COVID-19 Pandemic

(p. 2 2016) suggest that "both public and private food assistance programs serve as important mechanisms to tackle the problem of hunger and food insecurity in the United States." Using the HPS data, Bauer (2020) shows that low-income households with children are more likely to suffer food insufficiency and enroll in food assistance programs (e.g., SNAP, WIC, and Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer) during the pandemic. Instead of using the free food access variables from the HPS, we therefore draw on the 2019 County Business Patterns data (US Census Bureau, 2019) to shed light on the role of preexisting Community Food Services (CFS) in mitigating food vulnerability in the states during the current pandemic. [...]while the number of such establishments per 10,000 persons may have changed between 2019 (the most recent year for which data are available at the time of this writing) and March 2020, we suggest that once we control for the main driving forces, such as the spread of the disease and unemployment, which can affect both food insufficiency and CFS capacity, the 2019 CFS establishments per 10,000 persons variable is a reasonable proxy for the amount of experience a given state has with CFS and related establishments and its capacity to deliver free food through such a venue.

Which food prices were more vulnerable to the COVID-19 blockade regulations in China? Comparison between perishable and storable vegetables

Purpose>This paper aims to investigate how differently the COVID-19 blockade regulations influence the prices of perishable and storable foods. The authors focus on the cases of the 2020 blockade at Hubei province and the 2021 blockade at Shijiazhuang city in China, and the authors examine how the blockade influenced the prices of Chinese cabbages (perishable) and potatoes (storable) within and around the blockade area.Design/methodology/approach>The paper employs the fixed effects model, the panel VAR (PVAR) model, and the spatial dynamic panel (SPD) model to estimate the impacts of the blockade on the food prices. It constructs the unique data set of 3-day average prices of Chinese cabbages and potatoes at main wholesale markets in China during the two urban blockade periods from January 1 to April 8 in 2020 and from January 1 to March 1 in 2021.Findings>The results from the SPD models indicate that the price of Chinese cabbages was more vulnerable and increased by 7.1–9.8% due to the two blockades while the price of potatoes increased by 1.2–6.1%. The blockades also significantly influenced the prices in the areas adjacent to the blockade area. The SPD results demonstrate that the impacts of the blockades would be overestimated if the spatial dependence is not controlled for in the fixed effects model and the PVAR model.Research limitations/implications>Because the research focuses on the cases in China, the results may lack generalizability. Further research for other countries is encouraged.Originality/value>This paper demonstrates the importance of considering food types and spatial dependence in examining the impact of the COVID-19 blockades on food prices.

The impact of land certification on cropland abandonment: evidence from rural China

Purpose>This study explores how the land tenure system helps in protecting land quantity during agricultural production by estimating the influence of land certification on cropland abandonment, its mechanisms and its heterogeneous effects among groups at the provincial, community and household levels.Design/methodology/approach>To deal with potential homogeneity concerns, the authors investigate the impact of land certification on the area of abandoned croplands using nationally representative panel data from the 2017 and 2019 China Rural Household Panel Survey on 15,000 households across 29 provinces and time-varying difference-in-differences and propensity score matching-difference-in-differences models.Findings>Land certification significantly contributes to the protection of land quantity during agricultural production, and it reduces the area of abandoned croplands by at least 4%. This effect is mainly achieved by improving soil fertility, promoting land transfer, increasing the availability of agricultural subsidies and raising agricultural income. However, while land certification benefits farmers in nonmajor grain-producing areas and western regions, in plain, remote and nonpolitically central villages, and farmers who have not undergone land transfer or land adjustment, it is not beneficial for others.Research limitations/implications>In the postepidemic era, food security based on the protection of the amount of cultivated land becomes increasingly important. It is realistic and inevitable to rationally use every inch of cultivated land and curb the cropland abandonment by strengthening land tenure system reform, especially in the case of the insecurity of land tenure.Practical implications>There are various factors affecting farmers' cropland abandonment, such as poor soil fertility, unavailable land transfer, too little agricultural subsidies and too low agricultural income, but the root cause is the insecurity of land tenure. Empirical evidence from rural China has shown that a clear definition and effective protection of property rights can help curb the cropland abandonment. Enhancing the land protection behavior of farmers through the reform of land certification and promoting the sustainable use of land are what the reform of land tenure system should be.Social implications>Cultivated land, as the material carrier and endowment basis of grain production, is of great importance to safeguarding national food security, especially in the postepidemic era. At the present stage, it is still necessary for most developing countries to strengthen the construction of land tenure system, to carry out land certification reform and to issue farmers with clearly defined and legally effective land certificates. Equally important, efforts also should be made to promote the diversified utilization of the achievements of the certification after the completion of land certification reform in China and other developing countries.Originality/value>Expropriation and occupation of croplands are essential in protecting land quantity during rapid urbanization, and so is reducing cropland abandonment during agricultural production;therefore, it deserves close attention. In this regard, this study estimates the impact of land certification on the area of abandoned croplands, examines its possible mechanisms and identifies its heterogeneous effects to test the applicability of the property rights theory in the Chinese context and enrich the relevant literature and provide Chinese evidence for other developing countries to strengthen the protection of land quantity, by deepening the reform of the land tenure system under different circumstances.

How agricultural economists are using big data: a review

Purpose>The purpose of this paper is to describe the main ways in which large amounts of information have been integrated to provide new measures of food consumption and agricultural production, and new methods for gathering and analyzing internet-based data.Design/methodology/approach>This study reviews some of the recent developments and applications of big data, which is becoming increasingly popular in agricultural economics research. In particular, this study focuses on applications of new types of data such as text and graphics in consumers' online reviews emerging from e-commerce transactions and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data as well as other producer data that are gaining popularity in precision agriculture. This study then reviews data gathering techniques such as web scraping and data analytics tools such as textual analysis and machine learning.Findings>This study provides a comprehensive review of applications of big data in agricultural economics and discusses some potential future uses of big data.Originality/value>This study documents some new types of data that are being utilized in agricultural economics, sources and methods to gather and store such data, existing applications of these new types of data and techniques to analyze these new data.

Italian farms during the COVID-19 pandemic: main problems and future perspectives. A direct analysis through the italian FADN

The spread of the COVID-19 virus in Italy during the first phasis of the pandemic (February-May 2020) has caused a large-scale crisis, with an almost immediate decrease of industrial production and a consequent contraction in domestic consumption and external trade. However, the issue of food security was immediately recognized as one of the most sensitive, so that the Government has decreed the priority role of the food system, which has been included among those considered fundamental services and economically essential, allowing the related activities to be carried out during the lockdown. Agricultural production activities transformation, and commercialization remained fully operative during the lockdown;nevertheless, the sector has faced many difficulties related to the contraction of some of the marketing channels (restaurants, on farm sales, agritourism, problems with the logistics and many other ones). To better understand the effects of the initial phasis of the pandemic on the Italian agricultural sector and provide useful information to the government and decision makers, a survey was carried out with a CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing) sent to over 10,000 farmers belonging to the sample of the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The number of respondents has been of 733 farms, which represents around 7% of the Italian FADN sample. The results of the questionnaire have been matched with FADN data on the structure and the economic performance of farms, allowing a more precise evaluation of the condition and effects of the pandemic. The results highlight a relevant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic emergency on the agricultural sector: 37% of the interviewed farmers declared a significant liquidity crisis, while 60% predicted a contraction in turnover. These effects are more relevant for the wine, olives, and horticulture types of farming and more frequent in medium/large farms. A better situation has been found for farms which usually outsource processing and/or marketing/sale of the products.

Farmer-herder conflicts and food insecurity: Evidence from rural Nigeria

Food security in many developing countries has been threatened by several factors such as unequal land distribution, ineffective land reform policies, inefficient agricultural value chains, and an increasing number of climate disasters. In Nigeria, these threats are exacerbated by rapid population growth and extreme weather events, which have resulted in farmer-herder conflicts in most agrarian communities. This paper examines the differential impacts of the incidence and severity of farmer-herder resource use conflicts on food insecurity of rural households in Nigeria. We employ a two-stage predictor substitution model to estimate survey data collected from 401 rural households in Nigeria. The empirical results show that both the incidence and the severity of farmer-herder conflicts significantly increase food insecurity, and the severity of these conflicts has a larger impact than their incidence. The estimates of the conditional mixed process models confirm the robustness of our results. Additional analysis reveals that the incidence and severity of farmer-herder conflicts positively and significantly affect food insecurity, measured by the number of days with limited varieties of food eaten. Our findings highlight the importance of policy interventions that address ongoing farmer-herder conflicts in affected countries like Nigeria to enhance food security from a sustainable development perspective.

Buildings' energy performance, green attributes and real estate prices: methodological perspectives from the European literature

Buildings' energy efficiency may affect real estate prices, but the literature suggests that the effects of green attributes and Energy Performance Certificate ratings on the value of residential properties in Europe are still variable across contexts. The adoption of methods able to appropriately investigate this issue is thus essential. In this framework and to support future studies, this paper offers a methodological review of scientific works on the topic published in the last five years. Our work does not only represent an update of other reviews, but it originally analyses the papers by a methodological viewpoint. Results highlight a progressive refinement of the research questions and methods adopted. Then, the increasing importance of concepts such as latent variables and green attributes in the real estate pricing process is detected and identified as a field to be furtherly explored. Finally, Structural Equation Modelling is proposed as a promising approach for future studies.

Financial feasibility assessment of adopting active controlled atmosphere containers for exporting highly perishable fruits during COVID-19: case of Taiwanese atemoya

Purpose>This study deals with attenuating the risk of relying on a single export market, which was heightened by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on Taiwanese atemoya (a fruit with short storage life) and the adoption of active controlled atmosphere (CA) containers, a new technology which lengthens storage time for other export markets. This study looks at the financial feasibility of the technology's first ever use in atemoya exports.Design/methodology/approach>Apart from the standard financial assessment tools—like net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), benefit-cost ratio (BCR) and payback period (PBP)—this study calibrated five different scenarios based on data gathered from relevant market agents including suppliers, exporters, customs brokers and technology developer.Findings>Due to the high profit margin and low investment cost, the use of active CA containers for long-haul exports of this highly perishable fruit is found both technically and financially feasible, despite the generally higher operational cost during the pandemic.Research limitations/implications>This study looked at three specific export markets: Malaysia, Dubai and Canada. Results here may lack generalizability in other markets, although it is believed that slight deviations would not invalidate the conclusions of this research because short, medium and long distances were all covered therein.Originality/value>This paper studies the first time that active CA is used for export of atemoyas to expand existing markets.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the economy of oil palm smallholder's household income

Purpose>This study aimed to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the oil palm smallholders' income, which includes both on-farm and off-farm resources.Design/methodology/approach>This study used a simultaneous equations system for arranging the oil palm household economic model.Findings>The results showed that the negative effect of demand disruption (decreasing of household income) is more than supply disruption (production declining). Declining household income due to COVID-19 caused farmer households to have no access to both basic need and other goods.Research limitations/implications>The samples for before-pandemic data differed from the situation during COVID-19 in both the location and the person due to technical constraints in research sites.Originality/value>The main contribution of this study was providing an empirical understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic influences the economic behavior of the most vulnerable entities in the Indonesian palm oil industry (oil palm smallholder farmers' households). This study would provide baseline information on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy of oil palm smallholder's household income.

Were the US workers in “essential” sectors well paid?

Purpose>When the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic seriously hit the USA, a lot of cities/states announced their lockdowns, in some cases forbidding employees to go to work. But workers in the so called “essential sectors” were exempt from the order, and on the contrary were required to remain on the job in order to maintain the services and functions considered vital to the community. If they have not been paid well in comparison to those in the other sectors, there would be a stronger case for granting them a special hazard pay during the pandemic. This paper aims to design a way to measure the “importance” or being “essential” of the different sectors in the economy, and then investigates whether the actual pay of the workers in these sectors is consistent with the measured importance.Design/methodology/approach>At least two policy issues emerged from such an arrangement: (1) How can one define the “essential sectors” objectively instead of the authorities preparing a list according to their administrative procedure? (2) How well have been the workers in the essential sectors paid before the pandemic strike? The concept of a revised Leontief forward linkage effect will be used in an input–output model to gauge the relative “importance” of the different sectors in the US economy. Then the measured importance will be compared with the average compensation of the employees in these sectors.Findings>It is found that for some sectors such as agriculture, retail trade, and repair and installation of machinery and equipment the ratio of workers' compensation relative to the national average is substantially lower than the relative importance of the sectors employing them. That is, many of them have been substantially underpaid in spite of their importance.Research limitations/implications>The scope of this study is limited to one country, the USA, but the methodology can be applied to other countries as well.Originality/value>This study is an original research that contributes to an improved understanding of the importance of the workers engaged in different sectors in the USA during COVID-19.

COVID-19 and agri-food value chain: a systematic review and bibliometric mapping

Purpose>The COVID-19 has had a diversified and dynamic impact on the food and agricultural sector, particularly in the agri-food value chain. Although a good number of articles were published in various countries and continents covering various aspects of the impact of COVID-19 on the agri-food value chain, no significant studies were found related to the mapping of published literature to know about the scenario and current trend research. The study aims to perform a systematic review and bibliographic mapping in the agri-food value chain to provide insights into the same.Design/methodology/approach>Articles included in the Scopus database from January 1, 2020 to July 10, 2021 are considered. After initial screening and inclusion criteria, 41 articles have been selected to perform a systematic review which is published in the agri-food value chain. In addition to this, by considering the growth of the online food market, systematic mapping with the application of bibliometric analysis is performed to know the trend of the publications. Co-occurrence analysis with VOS viewer software version 1.6.16 is used for making network maps and supports the visualization of these maps.Findings>The synthesis of the findings reveals that four broad themes recur in the articles: namely, food security and crisis during the pandemic, food price fluctuations, the impact of COVID-19 and disruption in the agri-food value chain and resilience strategies to strengthen the value chain. Alongside, the synthesis of the findings, this study describes the geographical coverage, methodologies used, sector/industry-specific context of the articles and scope of future research. In co-occurrence analysis with keywords, four clusters are identified related to the online food market and are categorized as “COVID-19 and Online food delivery services,” “Consumer satisfaction to online food delivery services,” “Food delivery system” and “Demographic impact on online food market.”Research limitations/implications>The study considers only the article from the Scopus database and article published between January 1, 2020 and July 10, 2021. Future studies are encouraged related to impact analysis studies of resilient strategies suggested by various authors by considering multiple databases.Originality/value>This study will be beneficial for scholars and policymakers to know what is trending in the agri-food value chain and policymakers can implement various resilience strategies as discussed to mitigate the impact. The future research scope highlighted in this paper will encourage scholars and academicians to explore this area and will provide in-depth understanding.