“Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic and Lock-down on the Rural Economy and Lives of Rural People”

 

“Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on the Rural economy and lives of rural people”

Uttam Madane

Note: This Paper has Published in an edited book entitled "Covid-19 Pandemic: Issues, Challenges, and Outcomes" 

Citation: 

Madane, U. (2021). Impact of Covid - 19 Pandemic and Lockdown on the Rural Economy and Lives of Rural People. In R. Gandhe., P. J. John (Ed.), Covid-19 Pandemic: Issues, Challenges and Outcomes (I, pp. 190–201). Bhopal: The Bhopal School of Social Sciences. Retrieved from https://online.fliphtml5.com/jhnr/pjmy/#p=219

Introduction:

In around the world, People’s lives have drastically changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic for the last 5 to 6 months. All the countries which are facing the problem of Covid-19 cases at a larger level have declared the lockdown in the country. The Indian government also declared a one-day curfew on 22nd march, 2020, and got a good response from the Indian citizens, and afterward, the Indian government declared the lockdown in the country on 24th March 2020. It impacted the Education, Health, Farming, Industries, Small scale industries, Business, Markets, Labor lives, etc. this paper aims to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the rural lives and economy. In rural areas, agriculture and other allied sectors play an important role in the Indian economy. This sector also known as a primary sector of the economy contributes 17% of Indian GDP at current prices. As per the 2011 Census, 68.8 % of the country’s population and 72.4 % of the workforce resided in rural areas. It is worth mentioning that the agriculture sector provides jobs to around 53% population of India. Therefore, the huge populations which depend on the agriculture and allied sector have suffered a lot during the lockdown period in India. They are facing a lot of challenges and their consequences in their lives. This paper aims to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the agriculture and allied sector as well as the impact on the rural people's lives in which they are facing various challenges and their consequences.

The whole world is going through a crisis of Covid-19 pandemic, every country in the world is trying to control the Covid-19 pandemic in their way, including complete lockdown, keeping physical distance, frequent hand washing, etc., as well as researchers/scientists in each country trying to find a vaccine against Covid-19 pandemic, Thus the whole world is striving to survive in this pandemic. After the discovery of positive Covid-19 patients in India, the Indian government also announced the lockdown in the country, and this lockdown was increased from time to time because of the growing positive cases of the COVID-19. This five to six months period of lockdown has had a huge impact on the social, economic, educational, industrial, labor, trade, agriculture, etc. sectors of the country. People in every field are facing different difficulties.

The agriculture and allied sector are also facing many difficulties such as stopped harvesting of crops, wastage of vegetables due to transport and market closed, unavailability of labor, stopped supply chain, unavailability of pesticides for the fruits crops, marketing perishables, transporting inputs, credit unavailability and necessities for the farming community, etc. agriculture and allied sector’s contribution to GDP is worth consideration in the Indian economy as well as around 68.8% population lives in the rural area (Chand, R., Srivastav, S. K., Singh, 2017) and has depended on agriculture and related employment. Small landholder farmers suffered a lot during this hard time. They don’t have sources for their livelihood except for their small piece of land, in which they cultivate the vegetables to sell in markets and only that is their livelihood source. The the farmer who has livelihood sources other than agriculture such as dairy, goat farm, poultry, Fish farming, bee-keeping, non-farming wages, etc are also faced challenges to sell their products during the lockdown period. They have had a loss in their small occupation which is their strong livelihood source and it is leading them in finance crises to start it again.

The other sector affected in rural areas is Small Scale industries. They could not sell their products in the market due to transportation and market closed situations, could not keep starting their production during the lockdown period. After the announcement of the lockdown, the whole world has seen how much labor migrated from urban areas to their home town in rural areas. They all labors belong to the farmer's families, who have migrated to urban areas in search of livelihood sources, due to insufficient sources available in rural areas. They have migrated because of the overload of the population in agriculture and small-scale industries in rural areas. Currently, these migrated laborers from farmers' families are still in their home town without any sources of livelihood and it is very hard for them to survive. Therefore, this paper keeps aims to discuss the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rural economy and the lives of rural people.

Objectives:

• To discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agriculture products and it's market.
• To analyze the farmer’s economic condition and challenges in the cultivation of the farm during the COVID-19 pandemic time.
•  To discuss the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Small Scale Industries of Rural areas.

Methodology:

The paper entitled “Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on the Rural economy and lives of rural people” is based on secondary data. The secondary data has been used from various books, journals, periodicals, magazines, newspaper articles, newspaper news, e-journals, general websites, weblog, unpublished documents, various government reports, NGO‘s reports, etc. The researcher has used descriptive and Exploratory research design to write this paper. This the paper tries to describe how the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown impacted the agricultural product and its market as well as how and what kind of situation faced by the farmer during the lockdown period due to lack of transportation and closed market situation. This paper also tries to explore what kind of challenges and financial crises faced by the farmers as well as Small Scale Industries of rural areas. It is also keeping focus to explore the migrant worker’s condition and tribal people’s condition in villages. In this paper, description, and exploration of the COVID-19 impact on the rural economy, live of farmers and workers, Small scale industries, etc are not intended to provide conclusive evidence but it helped to have a better understanding of COVID-19 impact on rural economy including farmer lives, agricultural product, and market challenges faced by the small scale industries of rural areas in India. The paper entitled “Impact of COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on the Rural economy and lives of rural people” is divided into many components like abstract, introduction, Objectives of Paper, methodology, conceptual framework, discussion, conclusion, and references, etc.

Conceptual Framework/Key Concepts:

• COVID-19:

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus (World Health Organization, 2020). This new virus and disease were unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. COVID-19 is now a pandemic affecting many countries globally.

• Lockdown:

A Situation in which people are not allowed to enter or leave a building or area freely because of an emergency (Dictionaries, 2015). A lockdown can be defined as an emergency protocol implemented by the authorities that prevent people from leaving a given area. A full lockdown will mean that the people in the given area must stay where they are and must not exit or enter a building or given area (Business Insider, 2020).

• Agriculture:

Agriculture includes farming in all branches and, among other things, includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural and horticultural commodities, the raising of livestock or poultry, and any practices performed by a farmer on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, but does not include the manufacturing or processing of sugar, coconuts, abaca, tobacco, pineapple or other farm products (Ben, 2019).

• Rural Economy

The rural economy holds significant potential for creating decent and productive jobs and contributing to sustainable development and economic growth. It accounts for a significant share of employment and output in many developing countries but is widely characterized by severe decent work deficits and poverty, hosting nearly 80 percent of the poor (International Labour Organization, n.d.).

• Farmer:

A a person actively engaged in the economic and/or livelihood activity of growing crops and producing other primary agricultural commodities and will include all agricultural operational holders, cultivators, agricultural laborers, sharecroppers, tenants, poultry and livestock rearers, fishers, beekeepers, gardeners, pastoralists, non-corporate planters, and planting laborers, as well as persons engaged in various farming-related occupations such as sericulture, vermiculture, and agro-forestry. The term will also include tribal families/persons engaged in shifting cultivation and in the collection, use, and sale of minor and non-timber forest produces (Jebaraj, 2019).

• Small Scale Industries:

Small scale industries are those industries in which the manufacturing, production, and rendering of services is done on a small or micro scale. These industries make a one-time investment in machinery, plants, and industries (........, 2020).

• Migrant worker:

Migrant workers are those people, who migrate from village to city or from one place to another place within the state or country to get seasonal or temporary or part-time work in different sectors.

Discussion:

India is home to about 120 million smallholder farmers who contribute over 40% of the country’s grain production and over half of its fruits, vegetables, oilseeds, and other crops (Maggo, 2020). The lockdown period has had a huge impact on agriculture, small-scale industries of the rural area in the last four to five months, which contribute more than sufficient to the economy. In India, agriculture is the backbone of the economy and agriculture field generating huge employment in India, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation has hit very hard to the agriculture field and rural lives also. The regular transport and markets have not been functioning therefore farmers could not sell the crops that they had grown on their farm. The Kailash Tajne, president of the vegetable market at the APMC, Vashi, Mumbai, says they used to receive some 600 trucks of vegetables per day before the coronavirus crisis. But “On Friday, we unloaded only 100 trucks. The problem is not of availability, but of distribution,” (Parth, 2020). The month of March, April, and May are the season of grasp, watermelons, mangos, bananas, and some seasonal vegetables, etc. In this season, the farmers get a large yield of these fruits, vegetables, and this period is important for the farmers to get maximum income. But all the markets were closed, so the farmers could not sell their produce. A large amount of the produce has been wasted; as a result, farmers are facing a big financial crisis. According to the head of Lasalgaon Mandi Market, the onion got the lowest or negligible rate for this season was Rs 3 per kg, while the exported onion fetched Rs 9 per kg (Shelake, 2020). The onion has been made available in the market at a huge amount but it is not being exported. The 40% of onion supply to the hotels but the onion are still there at the everything is locked down (Shelake, 2020). The situation is similar to the banana, watermelon, grapes, and other vegetables. The  Krishi Jagaran (2020) reported that Corona is affecting fruits and vegetable export, The Maharashtra State export 65% of its total fruits and 55% of its vegetables, but now it is facing an economic crisis. Exports of fruits and vegetables in the state have declined by 50 % over the previous year. Last year, 23 million 84 thousand 690 metric tonnes of vegetables, fruits, and flowers were exported (KrishiJagaran, 2020).

Although medical and fruit sellers were in service during the lockdown, the prices of fruits purchased by a merchant from farmers were very low. The farmers could not get even the money that he has spent on growing the crops. As per the Sakal Newspaper (2020) reported, the farmer, Shantaram More from Hingoli sold one watermelon for one rupee only. He sold 12oo watermelon to 1200 rupees only.  He had spent twelve thousand rupees on land cultivation, plantation of watermelon, pesticides, and watermelon cutting and its packing, etc and he got only 1200 rupees out of that. Also, the farmers who could not sell their produce gave it to the villages around them. Farmers who grow vegetables have been hit hard. Because the village markets (Weekly Bajar) were closed during this period, the big vegetable market in the cities was closed, so the farmers could not sell their vegetables anywhere. Nowadays, a farmer has to invest heavily in cultivating the land, growing vegetables and fruits, spraying them with pesticides, cutting and packing the vegetables, and sending them to the market. In such a situation, the farmer left the vegetables to rot in the field as it is. Some farmers fed vegetables to their livestock. Some of them were ready to sell the vegetables from village to village with small and big expectations to earn some income to survive. The farmer tried to sell vegetables but they could not get much income from it. Because the entire livelihood of the farming family is based on the income from agriculture and in this lockdown situation, there is no market for any agricultural product; it cannot be sold, so there is a time of starvation for the farmers. The situation of the farmers who are small landholders is very bad. The survey conducted by the Chishti (2020) found a “very strong association between food insecurity & farm size, with landless farmers 10 times more likely to skip a meal in the past month compared to large farmers”. The small landholder farmers do not have enough capital to produce from the farm, at such times; the farmers are taking loans from moneylenders in the village. Farmers have dreams of making a better living. But his dreams are completely dashed. There is complete despair in his hands. Now that it is raining, the farmer has a lot of burden about where to get the money or capital to plant new crops or cultivate the land, as he has not been able to repay the loans he has already taken from banks or lenders, so he has no hope of getting new loans. In this way, the farmer is in a problem, and he is frustrated with the thought of how to support his family.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the person that has suffered the most in rural areas along with the farmers is the landless agricultural laborers. Because even if you think that the COVID-19 pandemic closed down businesses, factories, companies in the city and the workers stayed at home. But the lockdown has also affected landless agricultural laborers in rural areas, as the vegetable market in every city has been closed, So all the farming activities such as cutting the fruits and vegetables, packing of fruits and vegetables, etc has been stopped.  Due to this, employment has not been made available to these landless agricultural laborers. As per the socio-economic and caste census of 2011, 51% of India’s rural population is landless (Yamunan, 2020). Prasanna Mohanty (2020) stated that as per the pocketbook of agricultural statistics of 2017, out of the total agricultural workforce in India, 45.1% are cultivators (farmers with land or self-employed in agriculture), and the rest 54.9% agricultural labor (or landless). So, we can imagine the impact of the lockdown on landless agricultural laborers. All these landless agricultural laborers do not have any other sources of earning. Their entire family's livelihood depends on their daily wages, but due to the closure of these wages, they have a tension of what we will feed our family and children? Yamunan (2020) stated that A landless laborer, Subramaniam, and his family of seven survive on-farm work, supplemented with work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The law, passed in 2005, guarantees 100 days of manual labor employment in a year to every rural household that demands it. The paddy harvest work is over. This means, work primarily depends on the harvesting of crops such as a banana and other fruits, vegetables like tomatoes and spinach, and given the summer season, mangoes. But no farmer has called them in for work in the last three weeks despite the government assuring them that agricultural activities are exempted from the lockdown restrictions (Yamunan, 2020). The landless agricultural laborers are expected to get good employment after the rains and after the farming activities start. But now the situation of the small farmers is such that due to lack of capital, they cannot cultivate the farm, so they cannot even give work to the landless agricultural laborers on his farm. The large landholders use the machine for all kinds of cultivation and agriculture processes. As a result, landless agricultural laborers have tremendous trouble without any income during this hard time. There is no work on the farm, there is no work outside also, everyone is sitting at home to starvation. 

Along with the rural peasantry as well as landless agricultural laborers, the lockdown has also hit the tribal community very hard. Tribal communities are the most vulnerable in terms of food and nutrition security. The News Click (2020) reported that All India Forum of Forest Movements (AIFFM), Community Forest Rights – Learning and Advocacy (CFR-LA), and other rights groups conducted the study, and submitted a report entitled “Impact of COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown measures on tribal and other forest dwellers” to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. This report stated that almost 60% of the annual collection of minor forest produces (MFP) or Non-Timber forest produce (NTFP) takes place between April and June. However, since the period has coincided with the lockdown this year, it is affecting the livelihood of the tribal and other forest-dwelling communities. Hridayesh Joshi (2020) stated that non-timber forest products (NTFP), also called minor Forest Products (MFPs) have a major role in the economy of the tribal societies, around 100 million forest dwellers depend on MFPs for food, shelter, medicines, and cash income. Across the country, there are more than 200 recognized minor forest products including tendu leaf, bamboo, manhwa (flower & seed), sal (leaf and seed), lac, chironjee, tamarind, gum and karanj seed etc. The selling of these minor forest products is the main source of livelihood for tribal families. But, the agents who buy the minor forest products didn’t come to buy these products during this lockdown period even tribal people could not sell these products directly in a weekly market due to the close down of the weekly market in the lockdown. Tribal people constitute 8.6% of India’s total population (Khanna, 2020) and constitute 11% of the country’s rural population. It is estimated that directly or indirectly the livelihood of at least 250 million people is dependent on forest products and their business (Joshi, 2020). The period from March to June is the time of availabilities of minor forest products and their collection to sell in the market. This earning constitutes the majority of the annual income of tribal communities. So, we can imagine the situation of tribal people in these four months. In such a situation, the tribal people are facing the problem of how to take care of family and children. In the rural areas, the informal sector and moneylenders are the main source of credit, but the moneylenders have increased interest rates on loans in many places, because of the situation raised around due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, the people in rural areas as well as in tribal areas are not able to take loans also and such a situation is leading people to starvation.

After the eruption of the Corona virus, the worst-hit areas in rural India are Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) (small scale industries) along with the farmer, landless agricultural laborers, and tribal people. Misra (2020) stated that as per the annual report of the Department of MSMEs, there are 6.34 crore MSMEs in the country and around 51% of these are situated in rural India. There are 8 lakh micro and small scale industries in Maharashtra (Kulkarni, 2020). The Covid-19 has affected an estimated 11 crore people working in the area (Misra, 2020). The annual output of small scale industries in India is around Rs 28 lakh crore. These industries account for 50% of India's exports. In 2019, the sector accounted for 29 % of the country's GDP (Kulkarni, 2020). The collapse of such a large-scale industry has had a major impact on the country's economy. KredX Editorial Team (2020) stated that as per a survey conducted by the All India Manufacturers’ Organisation (AIMO) covering 5000 small scale industries have revealed that 71% of the businesses weren’t able to pay salaries in March. The survey further revealed that a whopping 43% would shut shop if panic extends beyond eight weeks. Considering the stoppage of economic activity over the past few weeks, it is unfathomable that a vast number of MSMEs will be choked, perhaps to the point of permanent closure. In the lockdown period, skilled and unskilled workers working in micro and small scale industries have returned to their respective villages. Also, the supply of raw materials to these industries has been disrupted. The capital of the entrepreneurs running these industries has run out. Now, these industries are starting up again, but the entrepreneurs are facing a shortage of skilled workers. In such a scenario, entrepreneurs are facing the problem of skilled labor and financing as well as market crises to get the industry back on track.

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