Study on crop losses due to COVID-19 lockdown period in Nagaon district of Assam

Abstract

An online survey was performed among the different categories of farm households in Nagaon district, Assam. Out of 300 cropped based agricultural farm households, of farmers were selected randomly and were grouped in accordance to their operational holdings viz. marginal (<1 ha), Small (1.01 to 2 ha), Medium (2.01 to 4 ha) and large (>4.01 ha). The necessary information was collected through their Whatsapps, messages and telephonic conversation from different 43 revenue villages. With a view to estimate the loss of crops cultivated during Lockdown Period (24th March, 2020 to 18th April, 2020) due to COVID 19 and determines the loss percentage of different crop enterprises for each group of farmers with district as a whole. After analyzing the received information it was found that large farms suffered maximum (71.69%) due to small tea garden and betel vine and medium farms incurred loss of about 61.33%. the overall loss of crops was 68.96% . The loss was found to be chiefly due to acute shortage of field labourers following COVID 19 restrictions during Lock Down period 1. As a result of which plucking, harvesting, marketing etc. all are at halt.