Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Indian Agriculture: A Review

Abstract

The rise and spread of Covid-19 pandemic affected all parts of the human society by creating massive socio-economic panic across all the sectors including agriculture, tourism, commerce, shipping, manufacturing and tertiary sectors across the world. The agricultural and food sector were considered as the most crucial part of the developing economics across the globe, which was completely exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has an undesirable and prominent influence on agriculture and allied sectors in India. The pandemic lockdown has resulted in the agrarian crisis across the nation by influencing and disrupting the food demand, food supply and value chain of various agricultural goods and commodities. In the country like India where majority of the population, approximately 140 million, depends directly or indirectly on agriculture and food sectors as the primary source of their income the impact due to the Covid-19 pandemic created an imbalance and affected the economy of the nation. Containing an analysis and detailed review based on articles, scientific reports, publications, organizational statements, and press releases, this review article addresses an inclusive assessment and highlights the effects of Covid-19 pandemic on agriculture and food systems. An effort has been made to understand its impact on food supply, food demand, food prices, food security and national economy. The need of the hour is to promote effective solutions in order to control critical factors such as food production, food supply, food demand, price hikes, food security and supply chain resilience. Since the urbanization and population will have tremendous growth in the coming decades, epidemics may be more frequent and we need to ensure contingency plans and mitigation strategies, especially for agricultural and food systems.