A Comparative Analysis of Wholesale Markets for Agricultural Products during COVID-19 Pandemic

On June 11, 2020, a second COVID-19 outbreak occurred at Xinfadi Agricultural Product Wholesale Market in Beijing, after no new local COVID-19 cases were reported for 56 consecutive days in this city. In addition to Beijing, there have also been COVID-19 outbreaks in several agricultural product wholesale markets in other countries around the world. This paper summarizes and analyzes the evolution and classification of the wholesale market, the characteristic of large wholesale markets for agricultural products and pandemic, and the comparison between international wholesale markets. We found that the wholesale markets in developing countries generally have poor sanitation and put forward suggestions from the aspects of market construction and staff protection to improve the market environment and reduce the occurrence and spread of diseases.