Basically they need liquidity, in addition to everything that was required before the pandemic.

Small holders in South Asia have several challenges during Covid period. What are the strategies towards managing small holder farming?

Keeping supply chains functioning well is crucial to food security. Farm populations must be protected from the coronavirus to the extent possible by testing and practicing social distancing. Small poultry and dairy farmers need more targeted help, as their pandemic-related input supply and market-accessproblems are urgent. Farmers and agricultural workers should be included in the government’s assistance package and any social protection programs addressing the crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the world on a crisis footing, with unprecedented actions to restrict movements and plans for radical deployment of public funds to combat the threat posed by a novel coronavirus that knows no boundaries. Success will entail coherent and robust plans for our food systems. The spread of illness can devastate poor rural communities and small-scale food producers who already face challenges such as weak resilience, poor nutrition and limited access to resources and services. Many countries depend on these communities for their national food security.

1. Fragile and conflict-affected states, where logistics and distribution are difficult even without morbidity and social distancing.

2. Countries affected by multiple crises resulting from more frequent extreme weather events and pests such as the current locusts plague – the worst in decades— impacting food production in many countries.

3. The poor and vulnerable, including the more than 820 million people who were already chronically food insecure before the COVID-19 crisis impacted movement and incomes.

4. Countries with significant currency depreciation, (driving up the cost of food imports) and countries seeing other commodity prices collapse (reducing their capacity to import food).

1. Support local farmers and farm initiatives

2. Be patient if there are glitches.

3. Waste no food

4. Consider working on a farm

5. Join and support campaigns

6. Check out a few other useful links

Globally, international support for agriculture and rural development has been lagging in recent years. Today, the international support from aid agencies and NGOs is interrupted, as travels are restricted and community meetings are prohibited. With increased donor attention to a domestic and international health crisis, aid for rural communities may drop precipitously.

COVID 19 has influenced more significantly horticulture sector than agriculture. As we all know, they are living commodities and more prone to spoilage. Because of poor shelf life, they can not be stored for more than 5 days. Lack of transportation facilities and poor supply chain management targeted such farmers. Unwillingly, they dumped their produce on roads and left as such in the field.

Decreased wool prices. The Cost of Shearer's.

Good Answer Nirmal Kumar Meena

With Southern Hemisphere countries going into winter. Finishing Farm will be highest effected due to unable to get rid of lambs or cattle to the works due to meat work restrictions. That means the farm will be over stocked and limited for feed. Dairy Farms might have to carry over empty cows for the following season until everything is relaxed and able to send to the works.

Small farmers lose their livelihood, if they're not engaged in some other activities to earn income.

First problem is the disposal of the produce as agricultural produce is perishable, without proper market and storage facilities, and without markets (due to lockdown), and without any other source of income, farmers will be the most affected community.

Small holders in India mostly go for subsistence level of farming and have low marketable surplus. During covid-19 pandemic they may have gone for distress sale of their produce especially food grains to fulfill domestic needs. They need financial relief for their consumption needs as well as to purchase inputs especially; seed, fertilizers etc. for timely sowing of Kharif crops (foodgrain crops & summer vegetables) where irrigation facilities are available.

In rain fed conditions also, good quality seeds are the immediate requirement, which should be made available to the small holders at subsidized rates by the concerned departments.

Any type of loan installments to be paid by the farmers need moratorium at least for six months.

The challenges are many for farmers during this pandemic: Some of them are,

i) The accessibility of inputs that increase their yield could be limited due to covid-19.

ii) For example smallholder farmers could face problems due to unable to sell their products to markets because of stay home commands.

iii) Farmers that have group working habit could be also affected due to this pandemic restriction of grouping people and etc

Generally, the above mentioned problems and which were not mentioned can affects livelihood of farmers.

Basically they need liquidity, in addition to everything that was required before the pandemic.

Thanks for response.

Yes rightly said. but accessibility of inputs timely also critical

The negative impact of COVID-19 on smallholder farmers is high. In Côte d'Ivoire (West Africa), for instance, small farmers such as cashew producers have lost a significant part of their income. Indeed, since this crisis, cashew prices have been falling over the marketing period due to the lack of funds on the cashew market and the restrictive measures enforced by the authorities. The COVID-19 has disrupted the marketing channels for cashew. In the short term, certain resilience strategies such as subsidizing the local cashew market should be implemented by the authorities. We have carried out an scientific study on this issue and this article is currently under review.

Most important and relevant topic raised by Dr. Srinivasrao Ch. Sir

There are so challenges both large and small scale farmers are bound to face during COVID crisis. But the impact is more on smaller ones specially vegetable and fruit growers.

1. Due to pericable nature of vegetables they are broadly affected by market availability where they can sell their produce.

2. Transportation is becoming a challenge.

3. Marketing problem is forcing them to sell their produce on cheaper prices even many of them are unable get their production cost back and some times they are leaving their produce for animals.

4. Now for upcoming kharif season they may face the financial problems to purchase and the availability of essential inputs like quality seed, fertilizers etc.

Alongside vegetable growers, foodgrain, dairy and meat production sector is also facing facing problem of supply chain, marketing and pricing.

To address the problem of these farmers, their much needed requirement of supply chain so that the produce of smaller farmers can get the market and price. Financial assistance in terms of easily available loans with extended recovery period will be boost. Assurance of availability of production input on lowest level is much needed.

Most importantly it's duty of every individual consumer and middleman also to support them without thinking about to take additional benefits of their compulsion.

• Access to online markets, which allow them to market their products directly to the consumer.
• Development of good agricultural practices for crop management and product harvesting.
• Access to technological, economic and social innovations that contribute to facing the crisis.
• Overcome trade barriers in the face of closing borders and limiting the circulation of your products.
• Access alliances, networks and platforms with public and private organizations to strengthen agrifood chains.
• Access new virtual participatory methodologies to improve communication between the actors of the innovation system with a view to strengthening their production units.

The major challenges during this COVID-19 period faced by the small farmers are all about supply, it might be the supply of inputs and also it might be the supply of their produce. It seems to be a 2 ways problem.

Covid-19 has impacted very much on small holder farmers in Kenya. Major markets are in Nairobi and Mombasa due to lockdown in these towns, buyers are restricted from movement, hence produce at the farm are getting bad due to lack of market, secondly the produce are fetching low prices locally, there is lack of farm are input's, also labour is a challenge as people are adviced to stay at home, transport is also a problem due restricted movement.

The key issue is compliance with anti-pandemic and sanitary safety rules and recommendations to reduce the risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (causing Covid-19). Farmers employing people to collect vegetables and fruit from arable fields, orchards etc. should require candidates for this work to present a medical certificate from the tests carried out, a test for the presence of Coronavirus or at least to measure the body temperature of the job candidate. Employees should wear face masks. Similar procedures should be applied to guests, clients coming to farms conducting agritourism services. If a farmer sells his agricultural produce and / or food products at nearby marketplaces or for specific agri-food processing plants, etc., he should maintain high standards of anti-pandemic and sanitary safety in these situations.

Greetings,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

marketing problems, higher input costs, delayed management of government subsidies, almost no development of apps for android that help in the marketing of products, and purchase of food supplies...

Integrated farming system approach.

Thank you

Many other issues like extension support to small and marginal farmers in terms of knowledge sharing and technical expertise, crop based package of practices and location specific technologies are also important for farmers in crop production.

Inaccessibility to farm inputs and produce market

A poor connection of buyers to sellers

A greater etiology to covid-19 as social distancing could be a challenge

Improper distribution system, unorganized market, poor knowledge, broken supply chain and the fear of COVID-19 are making the small farmer to suffer more as compared to large ones.

Availability of farm inputs in time is a major concern for small and marginal farmers as well as marketing of agricultural produce specially perishable in nature may be sold out in time which may be addressed by the Govt. eMarketing plant form need to be provided for such things to be tackled. Availability of manpower for farm operations due to covid 19 is a major concern which can be supplemented by providing mechanized solution for the farmers such as smaller implements like weeders, hoes, tilling machines etc may be made available by providing subsidy. Fertilizers, pesticides, seeds and plant materials availability in time is very important to take up timely farm operations.

fruits and vegetable farmers are facing most of the problems including purchase of inputs, but problem is acute in marketing harvest

High demand of Shearer's

Fruits and vegetables marketd during post COVID-19 period experienced logistic and demand -supply mismatch problem resulting in low prices to the producers and high prices for the consumers. Though the street vendors played a great role in providing these commodities to the buyers at their door step.

Large number of small and marginal farmers struggling to make a living during lock-down, experienced a strong mismatch of demand-supply chain due to logistics and inaccessibility of external farm inputs. The critical issues to be address for better farming is small scale mechanization for sustainable production and Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) based planning and execution of cultivation.

Unable to send work lambs at high demand prices due to restrictions.

Many small and marginal farmers are facing problems to sell their produce particularly the farmers who are involved in flower cultivation and leafy vegetables are the most sufferers. People are not going to temples or most of the temples are closed, flowers are perishable in nature as well there are no social functions ultimately no takers for flowers. There is huge loss for flower growing farmers farmers . Leafy vegetables are also perishable in nature and timely disposal is the key issue which needs to be tackled for the farmers.

As small farmers are largely dependent on horticultural crops, livestock and fish farming, which provide them a niche market and regular income flow, they end up losing their incomes when supply chain of agricultural resources like fertilizers, pesticides and other materials chains are not working at full capacity. Farmers have no access to these resources in lockdown and they are facing crop health issues in standing crops. The Lockdown also stopped the field activities training sessions in villages due to social distancing.

The marketing of perishable commodities affected, food loss and wastage have also gone up because of blockades in transportation routes. These blockades impede the small grower’s access to the market and prevent them from selling their marketable surplus which the police are not allowing farmers to transport vegetables to the city market.

Since the storage capacity with small farmers remains limited and they often sell their harvest immediately, they don’t hoard for profit making, on the contrary it lead to hoarding with traders and an uncontrolled price hike.

In developing countries of Asia, small scale agriculture mostly affected from Covid-19 with:

1. Reduced transportation due to partial and complete lockdown during harvesting time.

2. Inadequate labor availability while it was most needed, at the time of harvesting.

3. Input price was controlled nationally by governments, however, in the local market, there is a rise in price lead to additional cost for farmers.

4. Small scale agriculture of necessary goods, i.e., food commodities, poultry birds farm, are less affected compared to the recreational agriculture practice (i.e., Floriculture).

Above all these, small scale agriculture farmers are intending to move to new occupational practices which actually leave the agriculture sector in a threat.

Srinivasrao Ch.