It is widely feared that the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a significant worsening of the food security situation in low and middle-income countries. One reason for this is the disruption of food marketing systems and subsequent changes in farm and consumer prices. Based on primary data in Ethiopia collected just before the start and a few months into the pandemic, we assess changes in farm and consumer prices of four major vegetables and the contribution of different segments of the rural-urban value chain in urban retail price formation. We find large, but heterogeneous, price changes for different vegetables with relatively larger changes seen at the farm level, compared to the consumer level, leading to winners and losers among local vegetable farmers due to pandemic-related trade disruptions. We further note that despite substantial hurdles in domestic trade reported by most value chain agents, increases in marketing—and especially transportation—costs have not been the major contributor to overall changes in retail prices. Marketing margins even declined for half of the vegetables studied. The relatively small changes in marketing margins overall indicate the resilience of these domestic value chains during the pandemic in Ethiopia.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行期间的食品价格和营销利润：来自埃塞俄比亚蔬菜价值链的证据

人们普遍担心，COVID-19大流行的冲击将导致低收入和中等收入国家的粮食安全状况显着恶化。造成这种情况的原因之一是食品营销系统的破坏以及随之而来的农产品和消费者价格的变化。根据埃塞俄比亚在疫情爆发前和几个月后收集的主要数据，我们评估了四种主要蔬菜的农场和消费价格的变化，以及城乡价值链不同环节对城市零售价格形成的贡献。我们发现，不同蔬菜的价格变化较大，但异质性较高，与消费者水平相比，农场层面的变化相对较大，导致当地菜农因疫情相关的贸易中断而出现赢家和输家。我们进一步注意到，尽管大多数价值链代理商报告称国内贸易存在巨大障碍，但营销成本（尤其是运输成本）的增加并不是零售价格总体变化的主要因素。所研究的一半蔬菜的营销利润甚至下降。总体而言，营销利润变化相对较小，表明这些国内价值链在埃塞俄比亚大流行期间具有弹性。