Impacts of the COVID–19 Pandemic on the Financial Characteristics of Corporations in the Agri–food Supply Chain in Japan

概要

九州大学学術情報リポジトリ
Kyushu University Institutional Repository

Impacts of the COVID–19 Pandemic on the
Financial Characteristics of Corporations in
the Agri–food Supply Chain in Japan
UENISHI, Yoshihiro
Laboratory of Agricultural and Farm Management, Department of Agricultural and Resource
Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University

NANSEKI, Teruaki
Kyushu University : Professor Emeritus

https://doi.org/10.5109/6796259
出版情報：九州大学大学院農学研究院紀要. 68 (2), pp.161-175, 2023-09. 九州大学大学院農学研究院
バージョン：
権利関係：

J. Fac. Agr., Kyushu Univ., 68 (2), 161–175 (2023)

Impacts of the COVID–19 Pandemic on the Financial Characteristics of Corporations
in the Agri–food Supply Chain in Japan
Yoshihiro UENISHI* and Teruaki NANSEKI1
Laboratory of Agricultural and Farm Management, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics,
Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819–0395, Japan
(Received April 17, 2023 and accepted May 18, 2023)

This study investigated the impact of the COVID–19 pandemic on the agri–food supply chain in Japan
in terms of firms’ financial characteristics, focusing on profitability, safety, and productivity–related indicators. We used the dataset of TKC Management Indicators (BAST) (Summary Version) from 2019 to 2021.
The agri–food supply chain industries we focus on are “Agriculture,” “Manufacture of food,” “Wholesale
trade (food and beverages),” “Retail trade (food and beverages),” “Eating and drinking places,” and “Food
take–out and delivery services.” The results revealed that during the COVID–19 pandemic, “Agriculture”
had high profitability and safety in the agri–food supply chain, making it the most resilient during the pandemic. Based on these results, we identified potential factors that affected profitability and safety in “Dairy
cattle farming” during the pandemic: government support policies and a decline in beef consumption due to
a drop in inbound demand. In addition, for “Rice farming,” we identified government policy support, such as
subsidies, and high value–added through direct sales to consumers.
Key words: a gri–food, COVID–19, financial characteristics, supply chain

restaurant and hotel industry. Nevertheless, few studies
have clarified the impact of COVID–19 on the agri–food
industry relative to that on other domestic industries,
which is a vital undertaking. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of the COVID–19 pandemic on the
agri–food supply chain in Japan from the perspective of
firms’ financial characteristics.
The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows.
Section 2 reviews the literature. In Section 3, we introduce our data and research methods. Section 4 presents
the results and a discussion. Section 5 concludes with a
summary of the findings.

I N T RODUCTION
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID–19) was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a
severely contagious disease that presented unprecedented health and economic challenges worldwide. By
the end of November 2022, over 600 million cases and
6 million fatalities had been confirmed in more than
200 countries (WHO, 2022). Many countries and cities
implemented prevention policies, such as stay–at–home
orders and social lockdowns, to control the spread of the
COVID–19 virus. These policies threatened the continuity of all companies’ activities, from listed companies
(Rababah et al., 2020) to small and medium–sized enterprises (SMEs) (Kalemli–Ozcan et al., 2020).
In Japan, the first COVID–19 case was confirmed on
January 16, 2020. By the end of February, multiple
cases of COVID–19 had been identified nationwide. An
increase in the daily number of newly reported cases
was observed in late February 2020, and to prevent and
mitigate COVID–19, the Japanese government temporarily closed all elementary, junior high, and high schools at
the end of February. Exponential growth in the daily
number of newly reported cases started in late March,
and the Japanese government declared a state of emergency on April 7, 2020. Subsequently, the daily number
of newly reported cases decreased, and the state of
emergency was lifted on May 25, 2020. Under this declaration, people were restricted from going out and were
encouraged to stay at home, and many stores were
forced to close. The COVID–19 pandemic devastated a
wide range of industries worldwide and in Japan, including the tourism industry (Kitamura et al., 2020) and the

LI T ER AT U R E R EV I EW
There is extensive literature on the impact of the
COVID–19 shock. The state of agricultural food markets
and supply chains during the COVID–19 pandemic has
been evaluated mostly with respect to demand shocks
and supply channel disruptions. The immediate impacts
are tied primarily to price changes (Erol & Saghaian,
2022; Liu & Rabinowitz, 2021), changes in consumer
purchasing behavior and food storage (Chang &
Meyerhoefer, 2021; Wang et al., 2020), changes in consumer eating habits (Chenarides et al., 2021; Sasaki et
al., 2022), and consumers’ perceived risk of the COVID–
19 pandemic (Chen & Wang, 2022; Yenerall et al., 2022).
Much research has been conducted on the impact of
COVID–19 on the agri–food supply chain. Chen and
Yang (2021) found that in China, the COVID–19 pandemic reduced the sales of agri–food products, and the
sales of agri–food products by large agricultural companies had fallen more than those of SMEs. Hobbs (2020)
showed that the pandemic’s impact depends on the type
of products and the size of the initiatives in Canada.
Hobbs (2021) examined changes in the agri–food supply

1
Professor Emeritus, Kyushu University
* Corresponding author (E–mail: uenishi@agr.kyushu–u.ac.jp)

161

162

Y. UENISHI and T. NANSEKI

chains in Canada and the United States due to the
COVID–19 pandemic. The food supply chains generally
performed well, but COVID–19 outbreaks among workers in meat processing and fruit and vegetable production created disruptions. The study discussed the resilience of supply chains, and concluded that they could be
enhanced by investments in adaptability and flexibility.
Boughton et al. (2021) indicated that the agri–food system in Myanmar had considerable resilience in response
to initial disruptions; however, persistent financial stress
for a high proportion of households and agri–food system
businesses indicated that the road to full recovery would
take time. Hailu (2021) found that the food–processing
sector in Canada was relatively stable during the
COVID–19 pandemic as food was still processed and
delivered to consumers. Hayes et al. (2021) analyzed
the impact of the COVID–19 pandemic on the U.S. pork,
turkey, and egg markets. Yang et al. (2022) investigated
the impact of the COVID–19 pandemic on the Taiwanese
food industry, including food manufacturing, wholesale,
retail, and service sectors. They found that COVID–19
reduced the total sales value of the food industry by
24%. However, the negative effects were unequally distributed among different sectors of the food industry:
the negative effect was more pronounced in the food
manufacturing sector.
Moreover, some previous studies concentrated on
the financial aspects of the COVID–19 pandemic. Achim
et al. (2021) found that the total net profit of the market
decreased by 37.43% during the pandemic. In addition,
irrespective of size, on average, all service sectors, such
as hotels and restaurants, pharmaceuticals, and real
estate, significantly decreased. However, they also
found that small companies engaged in agriculture, commerce, construction, IT R&D, and transport and storage
registered significant improvements in their financial net
profits during the pandemic compared with the previous
period. Martínez–Victoria et al. (2018) analyzed the
impact of COVID–19 on agri–food companies in Spain.
Financially, they found a decrease in turnover, decrease/
displacement in the demand for products, budget reduction in R&D projects, and increase in certain product
sales. Höhler and Lansink (2021) analyzed stock prices
to examine the impact of the COVID–19 pandemic on
stock price volatility and profits of companies in the food
supply chain. The results showed that manufacturers of
fertilizers and agrochemicals, as well as food distributors, showed particularly high volatility in their stock
prices. On the contrary, low price volatility is observed
in food retailers’ stocks.

DATA A N D M ET HODOLOGY
Data
In this study, we use the TKC Management
Indicators (BAST) (Summary Version) from 2019 to
2021 (TKC National Federation, 2020, 2021, 2022a)1.
These indicators are the result of an analysis of the management performance and financial status of SMEs (with
annual revenue of 10 billion yen or less) that used the
TKC Financial System for 2 years or longer (TKC
National Federation, 2022b).
The indicators are based on financial statements
prepared in the course of field auditing and account
closing conducted monthly by TKC National Federation
members. These financial statements were used for filing corporate income tax returns. No other management
indicators for SMEs in the world have such accuracy and
speed and they have a good reputation with tax authorities, financial institutions, and other similar organizations.
The indicators do not disclose the financial statements of individual companies; they aggregate the data
in the financial statements of at least three companies in
a similar industry and of a similar size, and report the
average data classified into those of (1) excellent companies, (2) profitable companies, (3) profitable companies near the average, and (4) loss–making companies.
Since the BAST (Summary Version) discloses only
partial summaries for “excellent companies” and “profitable companies,” this study uses data for “profitable
companies.” “Profitable companies” have positive net
assets and income/loss before taxes at the year–end
(TKC National Federation, 2022b). ...

この論文で使われている画像