Compounding the peasant struggles: the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ghanaian farmers’ adaptation to climate change

Abstract

In recent times, the effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and other natural disasters have undermined global efforts to reduce poverty and inequality among rural farmers. While efforts at mitigating the impacts of climate change, particularly in developing countries, have not yielded significant improvements, the global health crises of the COVID-19 pandemic have, in many ways, undermined the positive adaptations to climate change. Based on data produced through mixed methods, the paper explores how COVID-19 affected farmers’ ability to adapt to the changing climatic conditions in Ghana’s Coastal and Guinea savannah ecological zones. The paper argues that the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has undermined farmers’ access to markets, knowledge, innovations, technologies and critical inputs such as fertilisers, seeds and weedicides/herbicides/pesticides. This has decreased farm output, increased post-harvest loss and increased farmers’ vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change.