Impacts of COVID-19 on rural livelihoods in Bangladesh: Evidence using panel data

Abstract

Rapid assessments have been emerging on the effects of COVID-19, yet rigorous analyses remain scant. Here, rigorous evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on several livelihood outcomes are presented, with a particular focus on heterogenous effects of COVID-19. We use a household-level panel dataset consisting of 880 data points collected in rural Bangladesh in 2018 and 2020, and employ difference-in-differences with fixed effects regression techniques. Results suggest that COVID-19 had significant and heterogenous effects on livelihood outcomes. Agricultural production and share of production sold were reduced, especially for rice crops. Further, diet diversity and education expenditure were reduced for the total sample. Households primarily affected by (fear of) sickness had a significantly lower agricultural production, share of crop market sales, and lower health and education expenditure, compared to households affected by other COVID-19 effects, such as travel restrictions. In turn, (fear of) sickness and the correlated reduced incidence of leaving the house, resulted in higher off-farm incomes suggesting that households engage in less physically demanding and localized work. Policy-makers need to be cognizant of these heterogenous COVID-19 effects and formulate policies that are targeted at those households that are most vulnerable (e.g., unable/willing to leave the house due to (fear of) sickness).

Diversified Farming Systems: Impacts and Adaptive Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States, Norway and China

“…Here we present a unique comparative and empirical based study, reflecting on pandemic-related impacts and responses on and by diversified farm operations, governments and nongovernmental entities in three very different contexts, revealing fewer devastating impacts than anticipated in large part because of the breadth and depth of multi-level responses across sites. We are, however, aware that this represents just part of the global picture and that many other farms and communities (see e.g., Barrett et al, 2021;Lioutas and Charatsari, 2021;Lopez-Ridaura et al, 2021), especially in the global south (see e.g., Carreras et al, 2020;Morton, 2020;Gatto and Islam, 2021;Rasul et al, 2021), saw more severe impacts and fared worse, as evidenced by a growing literature (Abiral and Atalan-Helicke, 2020;Jámbor et al, 2020;Meuwissen et al, 2021). Our study is an important contribution for understanding both the vulnerabilities and resilience of different actors within the agri-food system during the global COVID-19 crisis, with clear policy recommendations toward a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable food system for the future.…”

“…Disaster events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic (hereafter called "the pandemic"), can radically change agricultural landscapes (Eklund et al, 2016;Epstein et al, 2018;Lopez-Ridaura et al, 2021) and influence the adoption of new farming practices, crop choices and distribution mechanisms (Lin, 2011;Altieri et al, 2015;DiCarlo et al, 2018;Barrett et al, 2021), indeed, disasters can become critical moments of transformation (Folke, 2006;Bacon et al, 2012;Scheffer et al, 2012;Lioutas and Charatsari, 2021). This research builds on the important and burgeoning canon of literature that looks at rural livelihoods (Du et al, 2005;Valdés and Foster, 2010;Carreras et al, 2020;Gatto and Islam, 2021;Rasul et al, 2021), livelihood diversification (Gautam and Andersen, 2016), and smallholder farming (Hazell et al, 2010;Jayne et al, 2010), in the context of shocks. Given the pervasiveness and increasing frequency of human-environmental induced disasters, especially related to climate and health, there is widespread interest in understanding their impacts on agricultural systems broadly, as well as in the capacity of farmers to recover and adapt (Scheffer and Carpenter, 2001;Adger et al, 2005;Bacon et al, 2012;Kremen et al, 2013;Marín et al, 2014;Tendall et al, 2015;Folke et al, 2016;Kremen and Merenlender, 2018).…”

Covid-19 Effects On Dairy Farmer's Livelihoods

“…Rahman and Das (2021)found in their study that the COVID-19 pandemic affected about 33 thousand dairy farms in different parts of Bangladesh and drastically collapsed the marketing of milk and milk products resulting in heavy loss of farmers. Gatto and Islam (2021) founda significant relationship in their rapid assessments of the effects of COVID-19 on agricultural production. Popat et al (2020)found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the daily demand for milk in the market was continuously decreasing.…”

Impacts of COVID-19 on the Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector in Developing Countries and Ways Forward

“…Particular priority should be given to the households in which someone has fallen sick to COVID-19, as these were often severely affected by issues surrounding agricultural production, whereas households that were affected by travel restrictions, market closures, etc. suffered relatively less-severe impacts [57]. The design of the rescue policy packages should consider the following: (a) Smallholder fishers, whose livelihoods have been most heavily impacted by COVID-19, need food and cash for their survival and continued production.…”