The participation of countries in agriculture and food value chains: A global assessment and the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic

The 2020 edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (FAO, 2020) presents measures of global value chain (GVC) participation for the agriculture, and food and beverages sectors at the global level for a relatively long time span (1995–2015). The availability of these indicators represents an unprecedented opportunity to obtain a global assessment of the linkages between GVCs and economic performance worldwide. Thanks to these aggregate data, we report the empirical evidence of an increasing trend of agriculture and food value chains worldwide and also the presence, on average and ceteris paribus, of an established positive relationship between changes in both agriculture and food GVC participation and changes in agriculture value added per worker, net to the usual control. Although we acknowledge that it does not imply a parallel positive outcome in terms of social upgrading, we believe this overall picture should adequately inform policy making in the debate concerning economic growth and structural transformation of developing countries. As for the current pandemic emergence, contrary to conventional wisdom, we argue that GVCs can reduce countries’ vulnerability from trade since they foster trade channels and help the world economy to speed up the global recovery.