Resilience, endogenous policy responses to COVID-19, and their impacts on farm performance

• Published in: World development 2023-08, Vol.168, p.106254-106254, Article 106254
• Main Authors: Guedegbe, Tharcisse, Adelaja, Adesoji, George, Justin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Containment measures; COVID-19; Curfews; Lockdowns; Pandemic; Policies; Resilience; Shocks; Stay-at-home
• ISSN: 0305-750X; 1873-5991; 0305-750X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106254

•We investigate the impacts of COVID-19 containment policies on agricultural household incomes in Nigeria.•Stay-at-home orders and university closures mitigated possible negative impacts of COVID-19 on-farm income by enhancing available family labor.•However, directives to avoid gatherings had net negative impacts, thus exacerbating the loss in non-farm incomes of farm households.•Smallholder farmers and households with greater involvement in value-added activities were more resilient than others.•We argue that future policy responses to health shocks should consider the uniqueness of agriculture. Policy measures aimed at containing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic had unintended consequences on economic activities globally. In this study, we isolate and investigate the short-term partial impacts of six such measures on the farm and nonfarm incomes of agricultural households and examine the related resilience factors. Using Nigeria as a case study, we find that the COVID containment measures had mixed effects on farm and non-farm incomes in the short run. These varying effects are due to households’ resilience and vulnerability factors, including land size, wealth, income diversification, involvement in processing activities, and reliance on hired labor. Our findings highlight the need for more targeted health crisis containment measures which consider the uniqueness, diversity, and regional heterogeneity of agriculture, especially the potential implications for farm viability.