How the COVID-19 affecting 
Agriculture

As you already know nowadays, countries around the world had united against a dangerous virus, a Covid-19 pandemic which spreads worldwide for a year now, in its original form and new different forms – mutations. Almost every day we hear about new mutations developed in a new country, but I’m not a scientist nor a doctor and therefore I will not talk here about the virus, instead let’s talk about agriculture and how it did affect us, how it’s affecting, and how it would affect us more shortly.

But before that, a quick question for you. What did people rush to buy the moment it all started and even until now? Was it a brand-new designer bag? A new iPhone? Or maybe they upgraded their vehicle?
No, no, and no! People rushed to buy supplies of food, and daily necessities - dairy, fruits, meat, vegetables, toilet paper, wipes, etc. People want to be secured in times of crisis, which is understandable, it's in our human nature.

Luckily – necessarily factories and industries were allowed to work as usual, and even expand their activity, but still, it affected us until this day.  
Let’s look at some facts.

Interesting fact – the countries with the most export activity has been struck the strongest, which caused a serious slowdown in their exportation and increased the importation, according to the UN website. Simply because the client countries were declined their supply. According to the UN, the most hit got countries with the most rice exportation for example, which slow down their activity by dozens of percents - Brazil, Ecuador, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Exact quote - “The multiplier effect of trade policy leads to a shock to the export supply and the price of food more than three times higher than the initial Covid-19 shock”.

But import and export not summarized by rice, there’s plenty of other agricultural products that have been affected - vegetables, dairy, fruits and anything we eat, all was temporarily slow down, and even stopped completely in some countries, which caused for price and demand increase, while a decrease in supply and more importantly, exhaustion of the plants ground.

The demand is divided into two groups food services and grocery stores.

Food services felt a huge decrease of about -27%, for small businesses its fatal, and lots of restaurants and small eateries closed their gates forever in this time of crisis. Of course, there were lots of small retailers which also closed completely as of the regulations and endless quarantine, but it’s a topic for another article.

The grocery stores however perspired and expanded at this time as of an increase of +30%, an amazing boost for the business, if take into account that average business profit is about 30%. However, the huge increase caused a limited supply, on top of the existing import and export supply we already experienced. The lack of toilet paper, canned food vegetables, etc, you probably also felt in your journey into grocery stores, didn’t make any good for the feeling of terrified customers, forced us psychologically to buy even more than we initially planned, and pay “space prices”.

By the end of 2019 the food price, started to increase getting to a century all-time high - 102.5, not as what happened in 2010 the food crisis, but still “pocket hurt” high. Reaching the top price by the beginning of 2020 it started to correct itself and decrease below the past 4 years, till May, but from that point – let's call it “May point” the food price increased until 107.5 by the end of 2020, bringing us back to the exit point of the food crisis of 2010, and that is all the information we can gather until now. In our personal opinion, the food will increase and even pass the prices of 2010 – 140+, or even worse all-time high. 

It's not fictional information, there is a high possibility of conversion into our reality. The multiplier effect of trade policy leads to a shock to the export supply and the price of food more than three times higher than the initial Covid-19 shock.

In times of such crisis, usually, the farmers are not doing they usual ground break as it should be, and continue the growth of the yield, skipping the common break, which caused a decrease in yield and eventually to an almost full stop in the long run. This can cause an even bigger price increase soon as of drop in supply, and serious harm to our planet. Obviously, as responsible human beings, we care about our planet and we must save it, for our children, grandchildren, their grandchildren, etc.

Lately, we became more aware of our planet, and what should we do to save it, thanks to famous figures as Greta Thunberg, Elon Musk, the team from “Kiss the ground” and thousands more, talking about different ways of saving the planet earth, such as reducing carbon dioxide, moving to eco-friendly energy and transportation, and cut global emissions.

But again let's focus on our main topic – agriculture.

Without causing you paranoia, we at the beginning of global soil crisis, the soil is been sprayed again and again, with chemicals to reduce the insects in the field, and save as many crops as possible – its a fact.
Is killing the ecosystem inside it and spread a dangerous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing great stress to the environment and eventually to ourselves. This is the main concern of “Kiss the ground” guys. Now, this is a real problem that we're facing already, but the corona crisis can accelerate the process naturally, by again, increase in demand as of shortage of importation, mixed with an increase in supply by the farmers, but the soil, as soil, can produce a limited amount of crops, and when we squeeze the juice out of it, there will be serious consequences on the long term.

We are in world war III against an epidemic, against a deadly virus that’s spreading worldwide. Some will say that it's not as bad as the media is telling us, but a fact that this topic is still here we can't hide. We can see the consequences already, and they will not suddenly stop, even if magically all this crisis will be over today. Therefore, it's time to look for solutions, not just wake up late, when we already head over heels in problems, do you agree? So, what are the solution anyway?

The way we see it, there’s one main solution, which consists of few smaller ones. The main idea is – Grow your food independently – hydroponically, that way the country will now be affected by crisis’s shortage or political sanctions, contrarily – the supply will grow, more people will have access to sustainable food, as of growth price decrease and eventually end customer price decrease as well, and more exportation business to the country, economy increase, and the benefits list is long. It is not a dream, or insane vision, countries around the globe did that, which proves that anyone can, if they will only want. 

 What is the solution in detail?

“Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture, which is a method of growing plants, usually crops, without soil, by exposing roots to nutrition liquid or also supported by inert medium”. According to Wikipedia.

A fact - nowadays technology allowing us to grow industrially almost any crop we desire, using 95% less water, get a yield of 30-60% higher, without using harmful chemicals, using much less space, and without depending at all on climate conditions or common growing cycles.

The benefits are endless really, but why then it's not so common?

 

The hydroponics method still a new kind of new in the agriculture industry, and mainly focused on urban hydroponics in the city. It has a lot of sense, as people wish to have accessible healthy food, without becoming broke of that, especially nowadays when the prices are rising repeatedly. 

There is plenty of hydroponics methods, but with our rich experience, we can say without hesitation that the best will be the hydroponics in inert medium – coco peat for example. The reason for that is simply because the roots as a live creature must have something to hold from, the plant-feeding himself much more effectively if embedded into some kind of fiber, and not just swimming in nutrition water.
“But I can grow my lettuce in water easily!” can say anyone with a simple watery hydroponic facility, that is correct, leafy vegetables from lettuce family can easily grow by exposing the roots into water, and still the productivity will not be the same as growing them in an inert medium.

So what in our opinion the best solution?

What we offer is not a cheap but super effective solution, with an ROI of a maximum of 3 years, depends on your marketing power.

Grow your food hydroponically in green house's, create your ecosystem inside, gain full control of your plants, use no soil at all, know exactly how much you would harvest in 97.7% accuracy, and most importantly, grow healthy food in industrial volume, in automated mode.

Nethouse growing to allow us plenty of crops to choose from, less importation and eventually, again with the time – more export.

 If we compare the productivity of the local open field 1 square meter to Nethouse 1sqm productivity, we will be surprised by the outstanding result. 1sqm of Nethouse growing equal to 60sqm of an open field. 1sqm=60sqm, it's unbelievable but it’s a fact!

But why so? In the regular open field were facing much more insects which means diseases, birds are keeping to snack on our crops, growing seasons, climate conditions – rains, typhoons, etc. unexpected losses, soil replacement and tiredness, human mistakes, and much more factors, all lead to significant forever waste of crops. In Nethouse as you already know, we don’t have any of those problems, which make it the solution of the century as of 2021, and all the problems the Covid-19 brought with it, will be forever solved, for the current crisis and the next one.

The Nethouse solution is great on government levels, cooperatives, or wealthy investors level – as the initial investment of the systems. If you’re an individual who wishes to help the country and gain reasonable profit from it, there is always government or bank programs to help you with the funds, we will never suggest it, but its there, its reachable, especially if you're coming with a business plan and promising to return the loan in 2-3 years (common ROI on Nethouse growing).

But most of us like the security, and peaceful sleep, for those individuals we will suggest a home small facility which allows you to grow up to 84 plants at the same time, giving you the opportunity of feeling a real automated Nethouse in your balcony or backyard. The Golda® facility.

 That way you and your family, will never have a problem having quality vegetables at your dining table, nor supply, price obstacle, or crisis of any kind, will affect anyhow your healthy lifestyle.

 The mini Nethouse facility works in fully automated mode, so even if we have no experience on how to grow plants, it will do the work for us, and ensure us a full basket of fresh vegetables daily.

Besides the GOLDA facility, there are plenty of other hydroponics in the market that can be used to grow leafy vegetables and supply your family with the highest quality crops all year long. We strongly recommend to check Happy DIY Home home variety of hydroponics facility HERE. 

The Corona crisis hit us in almost every possible sector we can imagine, but there is always a solution to every problem, not just optimistic thought but a real workable solution. Technically the solutions were always there, and the real question is - When we will solve those problems?

 

 Thank you for your kind attention in reading this article, I wish that I was able to inspire you for an act which guarantee real help not only individually but also for the whole of humanity.
Thank you all, Roman Kataev – BDM Agrosheriff ltd.