The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vegetable farmers in Bangladesh

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic not only imposed severe health risks but also raised major challenges to the economy, due to widespread and severe measures to control the spread of the disease. Food value chains were disrupted by restrictions of the movement of people and commodities, which had significant impacts on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Bangladeshi vegetable farmers. A total of 320 vegetable farmers were selected from the North-West region of Bangladesh. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a digital survey method. Analysis revealed that around 3–5% of the marketed surplus of the farms was reduced during the pandemic due to the disturbances. The majority of the farm households reported that there was a significant reduction in their family income and, as a consequence, around 38% of farm households had cut down on their food consumption during the pandemic. The farmers were found to follow different strategies to cope with the difficulties and respond to government initiatives to mitigate such impacts. Despite all the restrictions and risks, extension services were still available to help the farmers. On the basis of the findings, this study suggests the importance of collaborative participation of the relevant bodies to decrease the effects of COVID-19 on farm households by employing all available mechanisms and focusing more on identifying effective coping strategies that can be supported in the event of future shocks, for more sustainable and resilient food systems.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• vegetable farmers
• livelihoods
• impact
• north-west region
• Bangladesh

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. 1$ = 106.32 Tk. (2023).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the IFPRI and ACIAR .

Notes on contributors

Mohammad Jahangir Alam

Mohammad Jahangir Alam is Professor at Department of Agribusiness and Marketing, Bangladesh Agricultural University. He was a Visiting Fellow at Australian National University. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Cornell University, USA and was a Commonwealth Fellow at SOAS, UK.

A.N. M Faijul Kabir

A. K. M. Faijul Kabir is currently an Associate Scientist at the IRRI Bangladesh. He was a Research Assistant at the Department of Agribusiness and Marketing, Bangladesh Agricultural University.

Tamanna Mastura

Tamanna Mastura is currently a Research Assistant at the Department of Agribusiness and Marketing, Bangladesh Agricultural University.

Avinash Kishore

Dr. Avinash Kishore is a Research Fellow in the New Delhi Office of the IFPRI. He has a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Master’s in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University.

Tamara Jackson

Dr Tamara Jackson has worked on farming and food systems projects that spanned a range of goals from improving farming and marketing systems and stakeholder engagement to foster communication and collaboration.

Ismat Ara Begum

Dr. Ismat Ara Begum is a Professor in Agricultural Economics at Bangladesh Agricultural University. he holds a PhD and a M.Sc in Agricultural Development Economics from Hokkaido University, Japan.