Year: 2020 | Month: December | Volume 7 | Issue 2

Farmers Consciousness on Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Agriculture and Allied Sector in Kashmir

Bilal Ahmad Bhat Sudhakar Dwivedi Samira Khan Naveena Nazim Bilkees Nazir
DOI:10.30954/2394-8159.02.2020.7

Abstract:

The COVID-19 epidemic poses a challenge to economy, psychological resilience and social life of people at the global level. In India, around 263 million people are directly or indirectly involved in agriculture and more than half of them are part of agriculture labour who were hardest sufferer during COVID-19. The Indian agriculture sector, along with manufacturing and service sectors also became victim of this pandemic. The restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 disease have significantly impacted the agricultural allied sector. The region of Jammu & Kashmir is an agrarian region, nearly about 70% of its population directly or indirectly depends upon agriculture also more than 70% people lives in rural areas. The main objective of the study was to assess the consciousness of farmers of Kashmir valley towards the economic impact of COVID-19 on agriculture and allied sectors. The farmers’ lack of consciousness is likely a contributing factor to food standards not being met in most cases. In this study, a welldesigned structured questionnaire was used to assess farmers’ general knowledge about impact of COVID-19 on agriculture and allied sectors. The questionnaire was developed with the help of literature available on the topic on six dimensions such as livestock sector, horticulture sector, food sector, agricultural labourers, media and psychological dimension. The data collected from 400 farmers (Central Kashmir = 100, north Kashmir = 150, South Kashmir = 150) using stratified random sampling technique was analysed, tabulated and interpreted using appropriate statistical tools. The impact of COVID-19 on food and horticulture/floriculture sector was severe. The marketing of fruit crops was affected due to shut down of different activities and non-availability of agricultural labourers. The labourers were supported financially and logistically with supply of food products by government through various schemes. The electronic media emerged as essential tools to disseminate the information through various social media and digital platforms in current COVID-19 pandemic. In order to restore normalcy in the agriculture sector, government should ramp up the infrastructure and provide financial support to the farmers. Finally, it was suggested that government, KVKs , NGOs, responsible citizens should play their role to overcome economic, social and psychological issues caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

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