Abstract
Crop diversity is thought to have small, positive impacts on dietary diversity among farming households, particularly when market access is restricted. Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic severely restricted market access. To date, no study has explored the relationship between crop and dietary diversity in this context. To address this gap, we used longitudinal data collected from 833 farmers across 12 states in India at three time points between May and August 2020. Dietary diversity was measured using a modified version of the FAO Minimum Dietary Diversity score for women, which has been used in representative samples of the Indian population in both men and women. Eight food groups were included: (1) starchy staples (rice, wheat, and potatoes), (2) pulses, (3) nuts, (4) vegetables, (5) fruits, (6) dairy, (7) eggs, and (8) fleshy foods (meat, poultry, and fish). Multivariate polynomial logistic regression was used to estimate the association between crop and dietary diversity. Models were adjusted for educational attainment, caste, farm size, having a kitchen garden, and livestock ownership. Participants were, on average, 42.2 years old and 94.2% were male. Dietary diversity decreased over the study period, especially between baseline and follow-up 1, when lockdown measures were the most restrictive (34.2% of participants experienced a decline compared to 16.1% from follow-up 1 to follow-up 2). Compared to farmers who cultivated 1 crop (monocroppers), farmers who cultivated 2 crops or 3 or more crops were significantly less likely to experience a decline in dietary diversity from baseline to follow-up 1: adjusted relative risk (RR) (95% confidence interval [CI]), 0.52 (0.35, 0.78) and 0.48 (0.31, 0.75), respectively. There was no significant association between crop diversity and change in dietary diversity from follow-up 1 to follow-up 2, when phased re-opening had begun. These findings suggest that farmers with greater crop diversity in India were more resilient to market disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, while the links between crop and dietary diversity may be small under normal circumstances, diversifying production systems may play an increasingly important role, as there is greater uncertainty due to global events such as pandemics and climate change.
Highlights
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, India imposed the world’s largest national lockdown
Results were consistent with the Simpson’s Index as a measure of crop diversity: those with a higher Simpson’s Index were less likely to experience a decrease in dietary diversity from baseline to follow-up 1 but no significant effect was observed from follow-up 1 to followup 2 (Supplementary Table 2)
We found that in the initial lockdown period, when measures were most restrictive, crop diversity was protective against declines in dietary diversity
Summary
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, India imposed the world’s largest national lockdown. Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on agricultural production and diet quality among farmers is critical to informing targeted government action in the context of this pandemic and future shocks. In India, two studies have found small, positive associations between crop diversity and dietary diversity (Bhagowalia et al, 2012; Singh et al, 2020), but three have found no association (Chinnadurai et al, 2016; Kavitha et al, 2016; Gupta et al, 2020a). Continuing to elucidate the relationship between crop diversity and dietary diversity is important in this context
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