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)