The impact of COVID-19 on agriculture: Evidence from oats and wheat markets

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the dynamics of the overall economy, impacting many fields, including the agricultural sector. In this paper, we examine two important commodities of the agricultural sector, namely oats and wheat, during the Covid-19 spread and the lockdown measures. Using relevant time series specifications, we establish a hypothesis regarding the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on these two commodities. Based on our findings, the commodities were affected by the Covid-19 spread and moreover, the Covid-19 confirmed cases provide useful information for the prediction and forecasting of these values. Our findings are robust, since the out-of-sample forecasting accuracy of the alternative model employed, that explicitly incorporates the pandemic induced by the Covid-19 disease, is superior to the baseline model.