Could Covid-19 Worsen Food Insecurity in Burkina Faso?

This paper analyses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on households’ food security in Burkina Faso. For this purpose, we have made use of a single country’s computable general equilibrium model and formulated two alternative scenarios (optimistic and pessimistic). While the baseline already shows a worrying food situation, our results suggest that the pandemic of Covid-19 contributes to a worsening of food security. First, the food deficit of poor rural and urban households worsens. Second, even if their food consumption decreases, the urban non-poor households seem to be resilient to the Covid-19 pandemic. The severity of food insecurity is increasing among poor households in rural and urban areas, whereas the non-poor rural households are likely to fall into the category of vulnerable people. Third, the negative impacts on food security can be explained by the combination of several factors such as a rise in food prices, a decrease in households’ incomes and remittances. Finally, the negative impact on food security seems permanent, as the deviation from the baseline persists over 10 years (2020–2030).