RESUMO
Food service and retailing sectors play a vital role in economics of Punjab, Pakistan. Pakistan is included in top 50 countries which are estimated to face serious agriculture and food deficiency related challenges due to the world-wide pandemic coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). The aim of this study was to study the effects of COVID-19 on food security and agriculture in Punjab, Pakistan using space-time scan statistic (STSS). A survey was conducted at 720 points in different districts of the province. The STSS detected “active” and emerging clusters that are current at the end of our study aera – particularly 17 clusters were formed while adding the updated case data. ArcGIS 10.3 software was used to find relative risk (RR) values; the maximum RR value was found to be 42.19 and maximum observed cases 53265 during June 15th – July 1st. Due to the highest number of cases of COVID-19 and RR vales during July, mostly farmers faced many difficulties during the cultivation of cotton and rice. Mostly farmers (72%) observed increase in prices of inputs (fertilizers and pesticides) during lockdown. The timely results (attained through STSS and RR) can inform decision makers and public health officials about where to improve the allocation of resources (including those for farming community), also, where to apply stricter quarantines and travel bans. If the supply chain of agriculture related inputs is disturbed, farmers may find it quite difficult to access markets, which could result in a decline in production and sales of crops and livestock in study area. It is suggested that to protection of food security and to decrease the effect of the lockdown, Punjab government needs to review food policy as well as analyze how market forces will respond to the imbalanced storage facilities and capacity, supply and demand, and price control of products. The findings of this study can also help policy-makers to formulate an effective food security and agriculture adaptation strategy.