Impact of COVID-19 on Indian Agriculture System and Revival Strategies

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted the Indian agricultural system, impacting both food production and supply chains. Lockdowns and mobility restrictions led to labour shortages, reduced demand from commercial food services, and wastage of perishable commodities like milk, fruits, and vegetables. Despite a strong buffer stock and a record harvest in 2019-20, challenges such as locust infestations and poor logistics further strained the system. This study examines the vulnerabilities exposed by the pandemic and highlights key resilience strategies for recovery.

Methodology: The study carried out a systematic literature review in order to consolidate the literature on COVID-19 impact on agriculture, distinguished by a well-documented, replicable and clear search mechanism driven by a theoretical interpretation of the related phenomenon. The conceptual framework was applied in the literature search, using the search terms ‘covid-19’, ‘agriculture’, ‘resilience’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘risks’ in all fields in the CA Web of Science database. Academic databases released across the year including 2020 were searched to cover the full spectrum of scientific papers. After excluding sources not related to covid-19 and duplicate articles, 50 documents were selected for analysis from the 343 sources found, and a snowballing technique added 30 further relevant papers. The analysis applies a vulnerability and resilience framework.

Results & Discussion: India became a hotspot for the virus, next to the USA, infecting 9.6 million or 14.6% of global infection as of 6 December 2020, resulting in a decline of 23.9% gross domestic product in quarter 1 of FY 2020-21. Analysis of official time series price data covering 284 days from 01.11.2019 to 10.08.2020 showed that wholesale and retail prices of pulses, wheat flour and milk were 1-5% higher a month post-lockdown, while prices of edible oils and staple cereals were 4-9% lower because of removing import restrictions and government interventions like free distribution of food grains. Vegetable prices rose, with tomato prices increasing by 77-78% in a week and 114-117% a month post-lockdown. Four hazard categories are identified with their associated risks: farmers and rural communities facing deaths, diseases, health problems, stress and trauma; goods and services facing losses of agricultural products and waste of food; the environment facing negative impact on soils, ecosystems and losses of flora and fauna; and economic development of the agriculture sector facing export and import breaks, economic crisis, bankruptcy, loss of income, unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has a big negative influence on the agriculture sector. Food safety and security were greatly threatened due to restrictions on mobility, interaction of people and reduced purchasing power, with the most vulnerable groups of population affected most. The analysis of literature in the risk-vulnerability and resilience of agriculture systems showed that the resilience of food systems needs to be enhanced by implementing technical and economic measures, all of which must first safeguard the health and food supply security of the world population. Technical measures aiming to improve the functional performance level of the infrastructure in the agriculture sector are necessary to enhance physical resilience.