In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic started spreading around the globe, many countries experienced the implementation of contact, travel and/or trading restrictions, curfews, or even complete lockdowns. In order to assess the challenges that small-scale farmers experienced, and their coping strategies developed during the initial phase of the pandemic, the Centre for Rural Development (SLE) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin initiated a joint research study with partners in Indonesia, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Silke Stöber is a senior researcher at Centre for Rural Development (SLE), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, with many years of experience in academic research, consultancy and teaching, covering the areas of food security and climate change adaptation. Her research and training is driven by transdisciplinarity and co-research with smallholder farmers. She is experienced in communication and management of junior research teams and supervises up to three Master or Bachelor theses per year. She has specialised on mixed methods research methodologies and designs, including representative household surveys, historical weather analysis, randomised field experiments, inter-farm comparison trials and participatory co-research with smallholder farmer groups.
Judith Henze is a post-doctoral consultant for sustainable innovations in agriculture, focusing on ICTs. She currently explores how AI can be employed to support farmers, food systems and to minimise human-wildlife-conflicts.
Prof. Dr. Markus Hanisch is the Director of Centre for Rural Development (SLE) Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He has a PhD. in agricultural and resource economics. Many years of experience as a chairholder, project manager, and university lecturer at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Particular expertise in the field of rural cooperatives, international/national. Professional experience as a consultant and expert for various international organisations, including the GIZ, FAO, World Bank, Conservation International, and UN-DESA.
Using the open access tool KoboToolbox, a smartphone-based digital data survey was conducted with more than 700 (peri-) urban farmers in Cape Town (South Africa) and Maputo (Mozambique), as well as rural farmers of Masvingo (Zimbabwe), Java and Toraja, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Farmers played an active role as co-researchers and engaged in data collection and analysis and contributed with own stories. Between April and June, the team managed to send out surveys five times.
Small-scale farmers answered survey questions about food security, challenges of farming and marketing, and how they cope with the crisis. Observations on food price development, its implications on household diets and major fears were also reported on.
The remote and digital data collection included also some challenges. As many of the Maputo urban farmers do not own smartphones, enumerators had to be engaged to conduct telephone interviews with the farmers. Data were entered after the telephone interview. Due to instable and weak internet connection, farmers in Zimbabwe and the remote mountainous Toraja responded by WhatsApp to a regional coordinator, who then transferred the data into KoboToolbox.
The results reveal that the level of imposed restrictions had a corresponding impact on the small-scale farmers. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, a strict lockdown was imposed. As small-scale farmers were not regarded as ‘essential services’, farmers were often unable to access their farms. In South Africa, the government introduced permits for farm access, which were difficult to obtain. As a results, 46% of the responding farmers in Cape Town were not able to access their farms during the lockdown. Similarly, a third of the respondents in Zimbabwe reported difficulties accessing their farms. Restricted access to farms, shutting markets and the closing of borders, meant both cities experienced reduced access to food, spikes in prices of particular food products, and a looming hunger crisis. In Masvingo, a prolonged drought affecting maize harvest intensified food insecurity.
In contrast, small-scale farmers in Indonesia and Mozambique were deemed essential, and almost all participants could access their farms and were able to sell their produce. In fact, as closed borders inhibited the regular food imports, Maputo, generally strongly dependent on food imports from South Africa, saw a growth in demand for local vegetables and local unrefined sugar.
In Indonesia, small-scale farmers are usually important players in the local food systems. This crucial status prevailed in the crisis, and the majority of farmers had access to their farms. However, farmer markets closed down in Sulawesi, where consequently 38% of respondents were unable to buy and sell food produce. In Java, marketing of fresh products like cabbage became a major issue, as logistic channels to the capital Jakarta broke down. Farmers had experience with previous epidemics, such as SARS, and feared the health consequences of Covid-19. Because of this, along with the increased meat prices, many people in Toraja chose a healthier diet rich in vitamins and increased their consumption of vegetables and even of fruits
From this research five lessons stand out:
The severity of the national COVID-19 restrictions correlated with the impacts in all five food regions. The harsher the constraints the more severe the impacts reported by the farmers. Impacting on food insecurity, a rise in poverty and unemployment, the situation led to hunger and higher levels of crime in Cape Town, and to food shortages, food price spikes and an increase in thefts in Masvingo. In the countries with less strict restrictions, farmers experienced less severe impacts. Yet, some farmers in Maputo, claimed that the COVID-19 interventions lowered their incomes due to a decline in customers. In Java, farmers reported fewer farming related outcomes apart from rising fertilizer prices. Marketing was also affected by travelling restrictions to other regions of the country.
Farmers adapted to market restrictions. In Cape Town, farmer respondents reported selling their products to local communities more frequently, to compensate for the loss of demand from and sales to restaurants and high-end markets due to COVID-19 containment measures. Similarly, urban farmers responded to the temporary cessation of NGO retail markets by establishing neighbourhood-wide WhatsApp marketing groups, and initiated word-of-mouth advertising for their produce. Farmers in Masvingo followed a similar pattern, actively compensating for the reduction of sales to restaurants, high-end markets, and farmer markets, by marketing 37% more often to local communities.
Rural farmers with multiple marketing channels and a diversity of crops grown had fewer difficulties to market their produce. While those depending on one product and one trader, such as marketing cabbage within Jakarta, had serious problems. This resulted in some having to let part of their harvest rot back into the fields.
As consumers, the urban poor, living in slums or shantytowns, were most affected. Concerning financial means, many lost their limited income as day labourers and/or, have few to no financial buffers to stockpile or bulk-buy food products during the lockdown. Access to food products became restricted as formal and informal markets were closed, and most urban dwellers were unprepared and lacked the resources (e.g. land) to grow vegetables or keep small livestock such as chicken to self-support their families (unlike most of their rural poor counterparts).
Mobile phones and mobile phone applications were an important part of local strategies employed to navigate the COVID-19 restrictions. Communication apps - such as WhatsApp – linked farmers with consumers and gave access to new markets. However, inadequate or expensive local mobile data networks and the investment costs of smart phones hinder many small-scale farmers to sell their products digitally.
Digital research was vital to assess the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on the ground. Probably this type of inquiry will become more common and increasingly utilised by nutrition and food security projects not only in crisis regions, due to a range of factors: first, new software has made mobile surveys a cheaper and a scalable option; second, real-time data can contribute to rapid responses for policy actions and decision-making; third, it can give a voice to the often unheard, such as small-scale farmers; and fourth, participants do benefit from the exchange with other participants if the results are relayed back to the participants (in this case a South-South exchange where a joint learning process was enabled).
Since many of the projects of the SEWOH initiative are concerned with the development of small-scale farmer market access and value chains, the comparative experience with local food systems in the pandemic must be further evaluated and taken seriously. Subsequent projects should strengthen and help farmers to further develop their own means and instruments for making food systems more robust and resilient against external shocks. Local and federal governments, as partners of such projects, have to be made aware of the “systemic relevance” and general importance of small-scale farmers for maintaining quality nutrition and food security, but also food justice in times of crisis.
The authors would like to thank all farmers who participated as co-researchers – for initiating the study, collecting data, and contributing to the analysis. Thanks to the colleagues in Southern Africa and Indonesia for contextualising the data. We thank Foundation fiat panis and Freunde und Förderer des SLE e.V. for providing financial support.
This text is a summary of following publications:
Paganini, N., Adinata, K., Buthelezi, N., Harris, D., Lemke, S., Luis, A., Koppelin, J., Karriem, A., Ncube, F., Nervi, E., Ramba, T., Raimundo, I., Sulejmanović, N., Swanby, H., Tevera, D., Stöber, S. (2020). Growing and Eating Food during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Farmers' Perspectives on Local Food System Resilience to Shocks in Southern Africa and Indonesia. In:Sustainability. 12. 8556. 10.3390/su12208556.
Henze, J., Paganini, N., Stöber, S. (2020). Chapter 8. Switching over instead of Switching Off: A Digital Field Research Conducted by Small-scale Farmers in Southern Africa and Indonesia. In book: Researching in the Age of COVID-19 Volume I: Response and Reassessment. Publisher: Policy Press and Bristol University Press.
Buthelezi, N., Lemke, S., Karriem, A., Paganini, N., Stöber, S., Swanby, H. (2020). Invisible Urban Farmers and a Next Season of Hunger -Participatory Co-research during Lockdown in Cape Town, South Africa. In:Critical Food Studies Collection. 10.13140/RG.2.2.34845.54247/1.
Stöber, S., Adinata, K. Ramba, T. Paganini, N. Sulejmanović N. (under review). Coping with COVID-19 containments: insights from smallholder farmers on food security and farming in Indonesia. AFJAND, Nairobi, Kenya.
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Four interviews kick off the relaunch under the new name „Food4Transformation“, asking the same questions from different perspectives. Dr Julia Köhn, Chair of the German AgriFood Society, points out in the interview: Only if innovation and transformation are profitable in the medium term can they close the food gap in the long term.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has released a video on the transformation of agricultural and food systems. In the video, Federal Minister Svenja Schulze also speaks about the urgent need to combat global hunger and contribute to resilient agricultural and food systems.
Four interviews kick off the relaunch under the new name „Food4Transformation“, asking the same questions from different perspectives. Dirk Meyer, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, thinks: less individual solutions are needed, but more systemic approaches. Because in addition to the goals for food security, the issues of climate and biodiversity must also be taken into account.
A Contribution by Dr. Fatima Olanike Kareem and Dr. Olayinka Idowu Kareem
High agricultural prices affect developed and developing countries alike, but the problem is aggravated for the latter through the lack of or inadequate resilience measures. Dr. Fatima Olanike Kareem, AKADEMIYA2063, and Dr. Olayinka Idowu Kareem, University of Hohenheim, explain what can be done to mitigate the negative effects on food security.
The consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have enabled many countries to open up new export markets for their agricultural goods. However, smallholder farms have been largely left out. Drawing on his experience in India, our author gives a brief overview of how this can be changed.
A contribution by the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development
Two years following the UN Food Systems Summit, the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development and the Shamba Centre for Food & Climate hosted an official side event at the UNFSS+2. The event explored how public donors can increase the impact of their investments.
Iraq suffered many years of war, sanctions and economic crises. However, Ally-Raza Qureshi from the World Food Programme in Iraq sees progress. But now the effects of climate change are becoming apparent in the country. What is to be done?
The world is currently experiencing a historic food crisis. High fertiliser prices are part of the problem. In addition to the necessary short-term aid measures, the crisis ought to be made use of to develop and implement longer-term fertiliser strategies for sustainable, in particular smallholder increases in production in the Global South.
In a world facing crises – from pandemics, armed conflicts, and climate change – how do we ensure everyone has enough food within planetary boundaries? A new podcast by Food4Transformation discover solutions talking to government officials, scientists, NGOs and farmers around the world.
The Gaza Strip depends heavily on humanitarian aid, more than ever with the current war. Gaza population is very young: Half of them are children. What is their situation on the ground? Questions for Lucia Elmi, Unicef Special Representative to the State of Palestine.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, not all financial institutions (FIs) have access to knowledge about how to implement processes to enhance rural financial inclusion. The pan-African Community of Practice (CoP) plays a pivotal role in supporting these institutions along this transformative journey.
How can agriculture engage more young people in rural areas? Advocacy and education campaigns can play an important role here. Simeon Kambalame, Timveni Child and Youth Media Organisation, has launched such a campaign in Malawi.
Women and girls in poorer countries are affected in particular ways by the multiple crises the world is currently facing. Uncovering the linkages between gender, resilience and food security, experts from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) look at ways to support women and girls’ capacity to respond to crises.
The armed conflict between Israeli forces and the Hamas is escalating. What does this mean for a Gaza, region that was already heavily dependent on external aid? Questions for Dr. Muriel Asseburg, Senior Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin.
Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Podcast of the Federal Government
At the start of World Food Week around World Food Day on 16 October, Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that the fight against global hunger will only be successful with international responsibility and solidarity (german only).
From measures to promote biodiversity in Germany to more sustainable cocoa cultivation methods in Ecuador: WWF works at many different levels. At the Green Week, it will be demonstrated just how multifaceted nature conservation work is and what role each individual's decision plays.
The Agriculture and Food Security Cluster of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in Zambia shows how synergies among different projects and partner organisations can help people to eat healthier, diversified food. A delegation of the Bonn based Division of Agriculture and Rural Development learned this in a field visit in the Eastern Province of the Southern African country.
Felix Phiri has been Head of the Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS at the Ministry of Health in Malawi for almost 20 years. A conversation about constants and change.
In Himachal Pradesh, India, natural disasters are becoming more frequent and climatic conditions are changing – with negative consequences for apple production and farmers' livelihoods. Holistic and multidimensional innovation bundles are required for the entire value chain in order to make the food system more resilient in the future.
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