Agricultural Systems

CONTEXT: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in immediate and wide impacts on human and agricultural systems. While some of the positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 on the environment and economies are emerging, there is not a comprehensive understanding of the potential impacts of COVID-19 on the most vulnerable farmers. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the immediate impacts of COVID-19 on agricultural and food systems in the United States...

Context: There is growing recognition that food systems must adapt to become more sustainable and equitable. Consequently, in developing country contexts, there is increasing momentum away from traditional producer-facing value chain upgrades towards efforts to increase both the availability and affordability of nutritious foods at the consumer level. However, such goals must navigate the inherent complexities of agricultural value chains, which involve multiple interactions, feedbacks and unintended consequences, including important but often surprising trade-offs between producers and consumers...

Context: The rapid emergence of COVID-19 could have direct and indirect impacts on food production systems and livelihoods of farmers. From the farming perspective, disruption of critical input availability, supply chains and labor, influence crop management. Disruptions to food systems can affect (a) planting area; and (b) crop yields. Objectives: To quantify the impacts of COVID-19 on major cereal crop's production and their cascading impact on national economy and related policies...

CONTEXT: CVOID-19 induced significant economic and social disruptions in India. Rural households, including smallholders, were affected by loss in migrant income, livelihood and farm and non-farm incomes. During this lockdown, the Indian government enacted several emergency legislations to provide direct and indirect relief to workers and households. India's COVID-19 social assistance package, namely, PM-GKY, announced in March 2020, was designed to provide immediate relief to the vulnerable population...

The shock of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted food systems worldwide. Such disruption, affecting multiple systems interfaces in smallholder agriculture, is unprecedented and needs to be understood from multi-stakeholder perspectives. The multiple loops of causality in the pathways of impact renders the system outcomes unpredictable. Understanding the nature of such unpredictable pathways is critical to identify present and future systems intervention strategies. Our study aims to explore the multiple pathways of present and future impact created by the pandemic and "Amphan" cyclonic storm on smallholder agricultural systems...

The objective of this contribution is to report the initial impacts of measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic on Myanmar's agri-food system. Myanmar is one of several late-transforming low-income countries in Southeast Asia where agriculture still plays a large role in rural livelihoods, and where food prices are a key factor affecting nutrition security for poor urban and rural households. Whereas the economic impacts of COVID-19 disruptions on tourism and manufacturing were obvious to policymakers, the impacts on the agri-food system were less evident and often more indirect...

COVID-19 induced lockdowns have had far reaching impacts on the rural sector, particularly on women farmers. These impacts have been exacerbated by lack of access to reliable and timely agriculture information. Using panel phone survey data from India and Nepal, we study how women's access to agricultural extension was impacted by the lockdowns and its effect on agricultural productivity. We find that women's already low access to formal extension was reduced further, leading to an increased reliance on informal social networks...

Africa's agriculture and food systems were already grappling with challenges such as climate change and weather variability, pests and disease, and regional conflicts. With rising new cases of COVID 19 propelling various African governments to enforce strict restrictions of varying degrees to curb the spread. Thus, the pandemic posed unprecedented shocks on agriculture and food supply chains in Sub Saharan Africa. In this study, we use survey data collected from nine countries in Central, Eastern, and Southern, Africa to understand the immediate impact of COVID-19 on production, distribution, and consumption of common beans, and possible food security implications...

Agri-food supply chains in North America have become remarkably efficient, supplying an unprecedented variety of items at the lowest possible cost. However, the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and the near-total temporary loss of the foodservice distribution channel, exposed a vulnerability that many found surprising. Instead of continued shortages, however, the agri-food sector has since moved back to near normal conditions with prices and production levels similar to those typically observed in years prior to the pandemic...

CONTEXT: The global COVID-19 pandemic has produced a variety of unanticipated shocks to farming and socio-economic systems around the world. In case of Senegal, the country was already facing number of challenges at the inception of the pandemic, including high rates of poverty, prevalence of food insecurity, combined with other biophysical and socioeconomic challenges faced generally in Sub-Saharan Africa. OBJECTIVE: To understand farmer perceptions of the potential impacts of COVID-19 on agricultural systems and social well-being of smallholder farmers in Senegal...

The objective of this study was to understand the impacts of COVID-19 crisis in agriculture and food systems in Nepal and assess the effectiveness of measures to deal with this crisis. The study draws policy implications, especially for farming systems resilience and the achievement of SDGs 1 and 2. The findings are based on (i) three panel discussions over six months with policy makers and experts working at grassroots to understand and manage the crisis, (ii) key informants' interviews, and (iii) an extensive literature review...

To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, India imposed a national lockdown at the end of March 2020, a decision that resulted in a massive reverse migration as many workers across economic sectors returned to their home regions. Migrants provide the foundations of the agricultural workforce in the 'breadbasket' states of Punjab and Haryana in Northwest India.There are mounting concerns that near and potentially longer-term reductions in labor availability may jeopardize agricultural production and consequently national food security...

Maize ( Zea mays L. ) is the essential staple in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Tanzania in particular; the crop accounts for over 30% of the food production, 20% of the agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) and over 75% of the cereal consumption. Maize is grown under a higher risk of failure due to the over-dependence rain-fed farming system resulting in low income and food insecurity among maize-based farmers. However, many practices, including conservation agriculture, soil and water conservation, resilient crop varieties, and soil fertility management, are suggested to increase cereal productivity in Tanzania...

Agricultural innovation systems has become a popular approach to understand and facilitate agricultural innovation. However, there is often no explicit reflection on the role of agricultural innovation systems in food systems transformation and how they relate to transformative concepts and visions (e.g. agroecology, digital agriculture, Agriculture 4.0, AgTech and FoodTech, vertical agriculture, protein transitions). To support such reflection we elaborate on the importance of a mission-oriented perspective on agricultural innovation systems...

Chemical control of insect pests remains vital to agricultural productivity, but limited mechanistic understanding of the interactions between crop, pest and chemical control agent have restricted our capacity to respond to challenges such as the emergence of resistance and demands for tighter environmental regulation. Formulating effective control strategies that integrate chemical and non-chemical management for soil-dwelling pests is particularly problematic owing to the complexity of the soil-root-pest system and the variability that occurs between sites and between seasons...

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There is great untapped potential for farm mechanization to support rural development initiatives in low- and middle-income countries. As technology transfer of large machinery from high-income countries was ineffective during the 1980s and 90s, mechanization options were developed appropriate to resource poor farmers cultivating small and scattered plots. More recently, projects that aim to increase the adoption of farm machinery have tended to target service providers rather than individual farmers. This paper uses the Scaling Scan tool to assess three project case studies designed to scale different Mechanization Service Provider Models (MSPMs) in Mexico, Zimbabwe, and Bangladesh...

In sub-Saharan Africa, there is considerable spatial and temporal variability in relations between nutrient application and crop yield, due to varying inherent soil nutrients supply, soil moisture, crop management and germplasm. This variability affects fertilizer use efficiency and crop productivity. Therefore, development of decision systems that support formulation and delivery of site-specific fertilizer recommendations is important for increased crop yield and environmental protection. Nutrient Expert (NE) is a computer-based decision support system, which enables extension advisers to generate field- or area-specific fertilizer recommendations based on yield response to fertilizer and nutrient use efficiency...

The development and scaling of orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) during the past 25 years is a case study of a disruptive innovation to address a pressing need - the high levels of vitamin A deficiency among children under five years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. When the innovation was introduced consumers strongly preferred white or yellow-fleshed sweetpotato, so it was necessary to create a demand to respond to that need. This was at odds with the breeding strategy of responding to consumers' demands. Additional elements of the innovation package include seed systems and nutrition education to create the awareness amongst consumers of the significant health benefits of OFSP...

We evaluated the usefulness of a co-design process to generate a relevant basket of options for climbing bean cultivation in the context of a large-scale project. The aim was to identify a range of options sufficiently diverse to be of interest for farmers of widely-different resource endowment. The co-design process consisted of three cycles of demonstration, evaluation and re-design in the eastern and southwestern highlands of Uganda in 2014-2015. Evaluations aimed to distinguish preferences of farmers between the two areas, and among farmers of different gender and socio-economic backgrounds...