Covid-19 pandemic and accompanying policy measures affected women's economic and social lives differently from men. However, its effect on the food security situation of women and men remains unclear. This study investigated whether female-headed households suffer more from covid 19 impact on food security than male-headed households in Ethiopia using the World Bank High Frequency Phone Survey data. Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) is applied to measure food insecurity and multilevel-mixed effect random intercept linear model is used to analyze the determinants. The survey data show that, during the pandemic in 2020, nearly 27% of households face moderate or severe food insecurity and close to 6% face severe food insecurity. Regression results revealed that the pandemic and accompanying policy measures affected food security of female-headed households differently from male-headed households. The likelihood of female-headed households experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity is significantly higher by 5.7% points than male-headed households. Education level of the household head is the critical determinant of women's food insecurity. Every additional year of education of female heads has a significantly higher impact in reducing the likelihood of experiencing food insecurity than that of male-headed households. It is also found that having access to basic food items reduces the likelihood of facing moderate or severe food insecurity by 7.4% points. Besides, education level of the household head, income change and family size are critical determinants for food insecurity of the sample households. It is recommended that stakeholders and policy makers focus in the gender aspect while designing policy measures to control pandemics and fucus on improving accessibility of basic needs such as food items to all.

China is the largest tea producer in the world; however, tea quality and safety issues have caught broad attention due to pesticide overuse in the growing stage. In order to control the quality and safety of their raw inputs, tea-processing firms in China are expanding their own plantations. Does this backward integration (BI) improve the food safety performance of the tea firms in China? Based on the transaction cost theory, we empirically investigate the effect of tea firms’ BI on their food safety performances, using data from 246 tea firms collected via an online survey in 2021. Controlling the basic background situation and firms’ characteristics, the empirical regression results, when controlling for the self-selection bias, support the hypothesis that BI can improve the food safety performance of the tea industry when it reaches the effective integration level, specifically, 80% or higher. Other factors include that the private brand and asset share of the plantation would also help reduce the firms’ food safety problems. Therefore, the government may consider supporting firms’ BI in the development of tea plantations through one-time subsidies and/or land and labor coordination, so as to improve the food safety situation and industry efficiency.

Consumer food waste linked to restaurants and canteens has been a long-standing serious problem in China, which hungers for an effective solution. Although government and media have launched campaigns against food waste, limited information on consumer perceptions is provided in helping to guide campaign programs. The influence of perception associated with low food waste is lacking, along with targeting campaigns based on these perceptions. This research aims to fill this gap. The purpose of this paper is to identify consumption perceptions about food waste in the Chinese urban restaurant sector, so that they can be used in social marketing to promote food waste reduction behaviors. Employing Probit models using survey data collected, we found that food security and environmental perceptions are associated with low food waste. Campaigns directed toward reducing food waste should target raising awareness of food security alert and environmental concerns that are more generally appealing to altruistic spirits.

China is one of the major countries with multitudinous consumers who eat wild animals. As the potential health interface between animal and human-being has been proved by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2020, this zoonosis has alarmed the public to pay more attention to wild animal consumption. It is imperative to study the factors that affect wild animal consumption in China, and find out what should be emphasized in the intervention of this behavior. Based on the consumer theory, binary logit model is employed to examine the factors that affect the consumer behavior in wild animal consumption, using the survey data from 390 respondents randomly collected through the online platform. The major factors that we examined include demographic characteristics, psychological factors, external factors, price and income level. We find out that the high-income level (annual income per capita is more than 100 thousand Yuan), low education level (primary education or below), consumption history (eating wild animals before), as well as the demonstration effect and the effect of the belief that eating wild animals supplements nutrition intake, have significantly positive effects on the odds of wild animal consumption in China. By contrary, raising consumers' awareness of food safety would reduce the odds of wild animal consumption. The study also investigates the major reasons why the consumers give up eating wild animals. Awareness of food safety is the top reason stopping consumers from eating wild animals. Wildlife Protection Law and its enforcement haven't effectively controlled wild animal consumption as expected. The study helps to explain consumer behavior of wild animal consumption in China and would contribute to improving current understanding of public responses to wild animal consumption.

As the rest of the world struggled to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, China was the only major world economy to report growth in 2020. However, challenges still lie ahead. This special issue collects six articles that discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the Chinese Economy, addressing issues in food safety and regulation, the impact of COVID-19 on consumer and labor markets, and new opportunities in E-commerce and trade. These articles provide insights that can be useful for businesses and policy makers to navigate the impact of COVID-19, and draw implications that can last well into the new decade.