Compound impact of drought and COVID-19 on agriculture yield in the USA

Abstract

The resilience of agricultural systems in the face of drought has improved over the decades, but the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic presents a new and unexpected challenge to the agriculture sector. The combination of drought and COVID-19 can lead to a compounding impact on farming sectors, including crop yield. This study investigated the potential impact of drought, COVID-19, and their compound effect on three major crop yields in 2020. The analysis was carried out using the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) concept to model the spatially varying relationship between Standardized precipitation evaporation index (SPEI), COVID-19 incidence rate, and three crop yields (corn, soybeans, and wheat) across the counties located in the USA. The GWR model was suitable for capturing local scale crop variability, and the potential hotspots are identified where the compound effect is dominant. Although the drought in 2020 was not extreme compared to the past events, the median crop yield during 2020 for the three crop yields was lower than their historical (1980–2020) median values, which highlights the potential role of COVID-19 on reduced crop yields. The compound effect of drought and COVID-19 seem to vary in terms of crop and region wise. For example, the compound effect on corn was prominent in Central California and several counties in Midwest USA. In contrast, the effect was more in eastern South Dakota, Colorado, and more scattered for wheat.