According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the East African region is currently facing the triple threat of COVID-19, floods and locusts. Although East Africa is home to only about 3% of the world's population, the region also hosts 22 percent of the world’s total number of acutely food-insecure people. It is expected that the socio-economic fallout from the pandemic will be far more devastating than the disease itself due the unemployment of people in the urban areas.

Cultivation of export commodity crops such as tea and coffee has become popular in developing countries located in the highlands of tropical and subtropical regions. Until recently, the flower and horticulture industry has also rapidly grown due to the establishment of air freight networks to major destinations, and is now integrated into the global value chain due to increased exports. The COVID-19 causes devasting economic crisis to developing countries that depend on commodity crop exports due to declining international demand and suspension of international flights. On April 8, 2020, the World Trade Organization (WTO) predicted a 13-32% drop in world trade volume in 2020, calling for unprecedented measures to protect people's lives and the need to pay close attention to the food security situation of food importing countries that rely on commodity crops for foreign currency acquisition, GDP, and job creation.

2The World Bank announced on April 8, 2020 that due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the economic growth rate in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is projected to decline from 2.4 percent in 2019 to -2.1 to -5.1 percent in 2020, the first recession in the region in 25 years. Countries that depend on oil and minerals exports such as Nigeria, South Africa and Angola, and countries with strong value chain participation such as Ethiopia and Kenya, will be particularly hit hard. In addition, exports and movement regulations will also affect the agricultural production and is expected to contract between 2.6 to 7%. The World Bank, with the support of the SSA governments, has called for the need to avoid the outbreak of an African food crisis associated with COVID-19. Through the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), Japan has taken the position of strongly supporting development in Africa, the fastest-growing frontier of the 21st century, in cooperation with the public and private sectors.

The global food chain is being tested for its robustness and resilience when it comes to movement restrictions and urban blockades (lockdowns) due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). In order for the international community to overcome the global food crisis, it is necessary to closely monitor the trends in international trade. The trade value of all agricultural products has tripled in face value from 2000 to 2018, and has almost doubled on a weight basis over the same period. Japan is the world’s third-largest cereal importer, and one of the reasons for a calorie-based food self-sufficiency rate of 37% is the heavy reliance on imported maize for livestock feed. The international rice trade from Asia to the Middle East and Africa is surprisingly large and the net per capita rice consumption of importing countries is even higher than Japan. In recent years, rice consumption in Africa has been increasing year by year due to urbanization and population growth, and agricultural technologies that contribute to continuous increase in yield and planted areas are the key to improving the self-sufficiency rate.