Deciphering the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on food security, agriculture, and livelihoods: A review of the evidence from developing countries Endashaw Workie a, ⁎ , Joby Mackolil b , Joan Nyika c , Sendhil Ramadas d a School of Environmental science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China b CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, India c The Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya d ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Haryana, India ABSTRACT ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 4 August 2020 Received in revised form 19 September 2020 Accepted 30 September 2020 Available online xxxx With COVID-19 now spreading in developing countries, massive consequences on health and livelihoods are feared. Food security is the most important and crucial aspect of sustainable development. The agricultural sector forms the backbone of the economy and provides livelihood to a large section in developing countries. Therefore, the disruption in food security and the agricultural sector will have far-reaching impacts on these countries. Owing to the importance of these sectors, this paper performs a comprehensive assessment of the effect of COVID-19 on food security and agri- culture. The research suggests coping and mitigation mechanisms that can be adopted to sustain livelihoods. Keywords: Agriculture COVID-19 Developing countries Food security Mitigation mechanisms SDGs Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. Sustainability and exposure to the pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3. Data sources and evidence from the literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4. Response to food security during the COVID-19 pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4.1. Food supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4.2. Food demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4.3. Imports and exports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. Impact of COVID-19 on the agricultural sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5.1. Farming and farmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5.2. Fishery, dairy, and meat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6. External factors and post-pandemic scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7. Proposed coping strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 2 (2020) 100014 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: endex.21@sjtu.edu.cn. (E. Workie). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crsust.2020.100014 2666-0490/© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Current Research in Environmental Sustainability journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/crsust