Agricultural households in times of crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic, livelihoods and land-use decisions

verfasst von
Kerstin Nolte, Kacana Sipangule, Niels Wendt
Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has profound impacts on agricultural households. We discuss how these impacts might affect the underlying drivers of land-use decisions. First, we conceptually extend models of (smallholder) land-use decision-making to assess how the pandemic affects the underlying drivers of land-use decisions. We then examine effects on agricultural households’ livelihoods, by drawing on high-frequency phone surveys from eight African countries and a literature review. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic affects these households’ livelihoods substantially, reflected for instance, by reductions in various income sources. We further find that households’ coping capabilities are weakened, meaning vulnerable households have difficulties to cope with the impacts of the pandemic. Agriculture is likely to become even more important in the years to come for households with very limited resources. Accordingly, we expect more labour-intensive uses of agricultural land. However, context matters and thus impacts on land-use are likely to be very variable.

Organisationseinheit(en)
Institut für Wirtschafts- und Kulturgeographie
Institut für Entwicklungs- und Agrarökonomik
Externe Organisation(en)
Vrije Universiteit
Institut für Weltwirtschaft an der Universität Kiel (IfW)
Typ
Artikel
Journal
Journal of Land Use Science
Band
17
Seiten
134-160
Anzahl der Seiten
27
ISSN
1747-423X
Publikationsdatum
2022
Publikationsstatus
Veröffentlicht
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Geografie, Planung und Entwicklung, Erdoberflächenprozesse, Management, Monitoring, Politik und Recht
Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung
SDG 2 – Kein Hunger, SDG 15 – Lebensraum Land
Elektronische Version(en)
https://doi.org/10.1080/1747423X.2021.2020922 (Zugang: Offen)