Understanding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable agri-food system and agroecosystem decarbonization nexus: A review

Adelodun, Bashir Kareem Kola Yusuff Kumar Pankaj Kumar Vinod Choi Kyung Sook Yadav Krishna Kumar Yadav Akanksha El-Denglawey A.; Cabral-Pinto, Marina Son Cao Truong Krishnan Santhana Khan Nadeem A.

The existing finite natural resources have witnessed unsustainable usage in the past few years, especially for food production, with accompanying environmental devastation and ecosystem damage. Regrettably, the global population and consumption demands are increasing ceaselessly, leading to the need for more resources for food production, which could potentially aggravate the sustainability and ecosystem degradation issues, while stimulating drastic climate change. Meanwhile, the unexpected emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and some implemented measures to combat its spread disrupted agricultural activities and the food supply chain, which also led to a reduction in ecosystem carbonization. This study sets out to explore policy framework and selected feasible actions that are being adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which could potentially reduce the emissions even after the pandemic to promote a resilient and sustainable agri-food system. In this study, we reviewed 27 articles that focus on the current state of the agri-food system in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the decarbonization of the agroecosystem. This review has taken the form of a systematic methodology in analyzing the adoption and implementation of various measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 on the impact of the agri-food system and reduction in ecosystem degradation. Up to 0.3 Mt of CO 2 reduction from the agri-food system alone was reportedly achieved during the first 6 months of the pandemic in 23 European countries. The various adopted measures indicate that the circular economy approach is a panacea to achieve the needed sustainability in the agri-food system. Also, it dictates a need for a paradigm change towards improvement on localized food production that promotes sustainable production and consumption. • The recent emergence of the agro-food system nexus as impacted by COVID-19 is reviewed. • Feasible adoption of COVID-19 measures for agroecosystem decarbonization is explored. • The gaps and constraints in the adoption of the CE approach to the agro-food systems were uncovered. • Circular economy in agroecosystems a panacea to sustainable agri-food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Cleaner Production is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)