Typically at this time in a new year journalists look back at the year that just passed into history.
This year of course there is only one story whether you are talking news, or sports, or entertainment, or as in this space agriculture, and that is obviously the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact.
Certainly not since the Second World War has anything so permeated the lives of people all around the world.
In fact, given that there were areas where the war did not directly hit, the pandemic may actually be more dramatic.
Of course the death toll is no where near those of the great war, but as we near two million dead worldwide they are significant.
In some ways the pandemic has shown the best of our world. We have generally come together with a fairly co-ordinated approach to combating the pandemic, and while results have been varied the general effect of wearing masks, focusing on hand hygiene and limiting gatherings seems to help keep numbers lower.
Of course there are those who ignore the threat, protest masks, and continue to threaten others in their community by their actions, but there are always dissenting voices in our world on everything from the world 小蓝视频 round to arguing the moon landing was a hoax.
But, back on the positive side we see what can happen with a concentrated world effort to do something positive, in this case the emergence of vaccines in mere months from the start of the pandemic. It shows what we can accomplish with everyone focused on a singular goal and the money to make it happen.
The creation of vaccines leaves one wondering what might be accomplished to deal with ocean plastics, the effects of climate change, the issue of homelessness and hunger, if we just focused on those issues as a united world?
And, now moving forward, COVID-19 remains the biggest issue. Even if the vaccines roll out without glitches, it will be months before most of the population has been inoculated, and then there are the anti-vaxxers who are against vaccinations and what their decision may mean in terms of COVID.
And, there is also the impact COVID-19 may have on the health of those who were infected and survived. There are at least some indications the impact on health moving forward may be greater than in many diseases, and that is a cloud over the future too.
While all of this may largely be a health issue, the impact for agriculture, for food security and distribution, cannot be discounted either, and will be something to watch as we move through 2021.
