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

authored by: 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.
Organisation(s): Institute of Economic and Human Geography
Institute of Development and Agricultural Economics
External Organisation(s): Vrije Universiteit
Kiel Institute for the World Economy
Type: Article
Journal: Journal of Land Use Science
Volume: 17
Pages: 134-160
No. of pages: 27
ISSN: 1747-423X
Publication date: 2022
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Geography, Planning and Development, Earth-Surface Processes, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 2 - Zero Hunger, SDG 15 - Life on Land
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1080/1747423X.2021.2020922 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{0c906c24fe94463683bf348d60c42353,
title = "Agricultural households in times of crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic, livelihoods and land-use decisions",
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{\textquoteright} 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{\textquoteright} livelihoods substantially, reflected for instance, by reductions in various income sources. We further find that households{\textquoteright} 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.",
keywords = "Africa, agricultural household, COVID-19, Land-use change",
author = "Kerstin Nolte and Kacana Sipangule and Niels Wendt",
note = "Funding Information: We are grateful to the associate editor and two anonymous reviewers with very constructive comments to an earlier draft version. We appreciate the help provided by Charlotte Bakker-M{\"u}ller in proof-reading the manuscript. We thank the Development Data Group of the World Bank for providing access to their high-frequency phone surveys. We further thank the Our World in Data team, as well as the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford for their great efforts in providing data used in this paper. ",
year = "2022",
doi = "10.1080/1747423X.2021.2020922",
language = "English",
volume = "17",
pages = "134--160",
journal = "Journal of Land Use Science",
issn = "1747-423X",
publisher = "Taylor and Francis Ltd.",
number = "1",
}