Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural production, livelihoods, and food security in India: baseline results of a phone survey.

ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on agricultural production, livelihoods, food security, and dietary diversity in India. Phone interview surveys were conducted by trained enumerators across 12 states and 200 districts in India from 3 to 15 May 2020. A total of 1437 farmers completed the survey (94% male; 28% 30-39 years old; 38% with secondary schooling). About one in ten farmers (11%) did not harvest in the past month with primary reasons cited being unfavorable weather (37%) and lockdown-related reasons (24%). A total of 63% of farmers harvested in the past month (primarily wheat and vegetables), but only 44% had sold their crop; 12% were still trying to sell their crop, and 39% had stored their crop, with more than half (55%) reporting lockdown-related issues as the reason for storing. Seventy-nine percent of households with wage-workers witnessed a decline in wages in the past month and 49% of households with incomes from livestock witnessed a decline. Landless farmers were about 10 times more likely to skip a meal as compared to large farmers (18% versus 2%), but a majority reported receiving extra food rations from the government. Nearly all farmers reported consuming staple grains daily in the past week (97%), 63% consumed dairy daily, 40% vegetables daily, 26% pulses daily, and 7% fruit daily. These values are much lower than reported previously for farmers in India around this time of year before COVID-19: 94-95% dairy daily, 57-58% pulses daily, 64-65% vegetables daily, and 42-43% fruit daily. In conclusion, we found that the COVID-19 lockdown in India has primarily impacted farmers' ability to sell their crops and livestock products and decreased daily wages and dietary diversity.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12571-021-01164-w.

SUBMITTER: Jaacks LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8116443 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature