International Journal of Economics, Business and Management Research Vol. 4, No. 12; 2020 ISSN: 2456-7760 www.ijebmr.com Page 204 ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AGRICULTURE SECTOR DURING GLOBAL PANDEMIC Stavros Kalogiannidis, Adjunct Lecturer Department of Regional and Cross Border Development, University of Western Macedonia, Greece, ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2337-5775 Katerina Melfou University of Western Macedonia, School of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Agriculture Terma Kontopoulou, 53100 Florina, GREECE Abstract The global pandemic negatively impacted various sectors of the economy. The responsive measures of government to combat global pandemic resulted in various travel restrictions and temporary lockdown of markets. The travel restricts created disturbances in supply chain due to which there are unnecessary wastages of supplies and increasing stocks at warehouses. Several business sectors faced huge losses and closed down their organizations. The agriculture sector faced limited restrictions due to the approval of government for agriculture sector as essential and exemption from any travel movement. There are huge cereal stocks and production stocks but we can say that COVID impacts are limited on agriculture sector as compared other sectors of the economy. There are various challenges and opportunities for agriculture sector which will be discussed in detail in this essay. Keywords: Agricultural sector – Covid 19 – Social economy – Food production Investigating issues of COVID on global agriculture sector Impact of COVID on agricultural income and production The government responsive measures of travel restrictions created a shortage of labour in various sectors including agriculture sector. In some countries, COVID phase 1 aroused during peak season where there is high demand of labour to execute farming process. Europe registered numerous COVID cases due to which Schengen and Europe were closed (Dev,2020). The fruit and vegetable production of Europe was adversely impacted through shortage of labour. European countries are highly dependent over fruit and vegetable sector which are labour intensive sector. The travel restrictions created a huge mess over there resulting in high loss of finance and productivity. The agricultural income in Europe slumped down during the first wave of pandemic in various European countries. Lack of labour in harvesting season resulted in global under production (Sharma, et.al2020). The increasing surplus of food and agriculture stock resulted in loss of perishable products. The disruptions in supply chain are impacting farm incomes negatively. Some countries faced the