Abstract
The global COVID-19 pandemic has hit the agriculture sector hard around the world. A study was conducted to assess the impact of the pandemic on cropping patterns, crop management, usage of chemical inputs and their organic alternatives, harvesting, and marketing avenues through a survey approach in the two states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu in India. A total of 250 farmers participated in the study, the data was analyzed by Chi-square test and Kruskal–Wallis test. The assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on some aspects was undertaken by dividing the study period into three phases. Though a smaller number of people were infected with COVID-19 in the initial phase of the pandemic compared to the later phases, farm operations and the procurement of inputs were significantly affected at this phase as there was a sudden disruption in transportation due to COVID-19-induced movement restrictions. During the entire study period, commodities such as rice, bananas, vegetables, coconuts, and flowers suffered maximum crop loss compared to pulses, groundnuts, cotton, and rubber. Among fertilizers, the maximum shortage was observed for chemical fertilizers (46%) and biofertilizers (30%) compared to cow dung (18%) and poultry manure (6%), indicating that farmers tended to use more local materials that could be easily procured and accessed compared to shop-based inputs. A rise in the cost of cultivation, scarcity of farm workforce, and difficulty in hiring farm machinery all have contributed to the loss of profit during the pandemic period. As a response to COVID-19, growers initiated post-harvest processing of commodities, and cropping systems remained the same during the period. The paper also discusses some remedial measures to be adopted by households in the future, to minimize the impacts of such pandemics in the agrarian sector.
Highlights
The global COVID-19 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2) pandemic has impacted all sectors including agriculture, business, employment, entertainment, education, economy, transport, social and religious gatherings, food security, and sports [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
The impacts of COVID-19 vary with crops; the impact seems to be more on perishable commodities including vegetables and fruits compared to nonperishable products [8], such as rice, and this emphasizes the requirement for enhancing post-harvest processing or value addition of agricultural commodities [18]
The current study explored the impact of COVID-19 on the agriculture sector through undertaking a survey among farm households and discusses the probable solutions and strategic framework to combat such pandemics in the future
Summary
The global COVID-19 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2) pandemic has impacted all sectors including agriculture, business, employment, entertainment, education, economy, transport, social and religious gatherings, food security, and sports [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. COVID-19’s impacts on the agriculture sector differ from region to region, with the major issues being reported including labor and machinery shortages, limited access to crop fields and markets, poor access to agricultural inputs, services, and advisory services, supply chain disruptions, and perishability of the products due to limited access to market and insufficient post-harvest handling [4,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. Lockdowns have significantly affected agriculture commodity movement and marketing of the products [14,17]. COVID-19 restrictions affected the movement of farmworkers, affected the supply and demand of agricultural commodities, and led to the closure of food production units as well as financial pressures in the agricultural supply chain [3]
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