Short-term gain, long-term loss: Exploring the effects of Covid-19 survival strategies on rural livelihoods and the agrarian economy

• Published in: Journal of rural studies 2025-01, Vol.113, p.103523, Article 103523
• Main Authors: Siaw, Daniel, Ofosu, George, Sarpong, David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: agricultural industry; Agriculture; biodiversity; Chain actors; climate change; Coronavirus; COVID-19 infection; decline; Ghana; land degradation; Livelihoods; pandemic; socioeconomics; Supply chain
• ISSN: 0743-0167
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103523

In this paper, we explore how the practices of agricultural chain actors within the contingencies of the Covid-19 crisis, may have contributed to precarious rural livelihoods and the agrarian economy. Developing our contribution in the context of Ghana's agricultural sector, which is grappling with socio-economic and sustainability challenges such as land degradation, climate change, and biodiversity loss, we identified salient survival practices in the actions adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic which resulted in short-term gain, but also accounted for the long-term intractable decline in production and for producers' wellbeing. Explicating a fine analysis of how individual practices induced by the pandemic may have contributed to foster a decline in the agrarian economy, our study goes on to shed light on the devastating outcomes of the pandemic on rural livelihoods and the agrarian economies often marked by weak institutions and underdeveloped markets. •We unpack individual behaviour and collective economic actions induced by the Covid-19 crises in the agrarian economy.•We then explicate a fine analysis of how these behaviours translated into short-term gains, and long-term losses.•We present the resultant devastating outcomes of the pandemic on rural livelihoods and the agrarian economies.