*2.1. Horticulture Exports Supply Chain and COVID-19 Pandemic*

Research on the global COVID-19 pandemic posits that it is expected to have severe economic consequences, resulting in a 3 % contraction of the world economy [22]. In this view, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are expected to be most severely affected [16]. Vos et al. [9] posited that the COVID-19 pandemic will affect food supply chains in three main ways. These are succinctly captured in Van Hoyweghen et al. [13] (p. 424) as:


In addition, the literature recognises that the size of production and distribution units, the capital intensity of operations, the level of vertical coordination, the length of the chains, and the level of integration in international markets will be impacted differently resulting in supply chains exhibiting different levels of resilience to the effects of COVID-19 pandemic [49,58,59]. These will affect supply chains differently with distinctions in traditional, transitional and modern supply chains. Van Hoyweghen et al. [13] (p. 424) therefore argued that "as traditional and transitional supply chains are less integrated in international markets on the output side and oriented more toward production for domestic markets, they might be less affected by international trade disruptions."
