by: Sara Hendery and Daniel Sumner
While the COVID-19 pandemic is slowing down in some areas of the world, its impact on food security could have long-term effects on millions of people, particularly women and marginalized communities. If pest and disease incidence is left unmanaged in farmers’ fields due to limited access to resources, yields have the potential to dramatically decrease. Social distancing, disrupted markets, and labor shortages are just a few of the barriers keeping people from buying, selling, and consuming the food they need.
In Africa and Asia, where the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management (IPM IL) works to improve farmer livelihoods and increase food security, the program’s collaborative researchers and farmers have been uniquely impacted by the onset of COVID-19. As farmers attempt to grow crops without the trusted resources they typically rely on, researchers addressing food security issues are facing their own constraints gathering data, rescheduling delayed activities, and managing ever-changing workspaces.
As COVID-19 increasingly highlights the fragility of global food supply, the IPM IL aims to address gaps along the way. Below are snapshots of the experiences of farmers and researchers collaborating with the IPM IL amid the pandemic – their obstacles, insights, lessons learned, and pathways to progress.
Kenya
For the IPM IL, the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) does the critical work of setting up on-farm trials of IPM solutions to crop problems. These trials help to validate the efficacy of products like Trichoderma, a naturally occurring fungus that helps boost plant defense mechanisms against threats. Due to the pandemic, however, trials have been put on hold.
Jesca Mbaka, a plant pathologist at KALRO, said that setbacks like these may have an especially negative impact on women.
“Women are likely to be marginalized due to their low bargaining power,” Mbaka said. “Demand for non-essential goods like crafts and clothing, among other commodities dominating the informal sector, is currently low. Small food kiosks that are significantly run by women have been driven out of business due to recommended social distancing rules.”
Additionally, both schools and childcare facilities have closed in Kenya due to COVID-19, shifting the childcare burden to households, and more specifically to women.
Mbaka also said that as she, too, attempts to manage COVID-19 restrictions while coordinating for several development projects, she is experiencing a social shift.
“It [working in the field] is not readily acceptable to my family members, despite the fact that I am the sole bread winner,” she said. “My family is thinking of my vulnerability.”
To continue providing resources during the pandemic, the KALRO team is utilizing WhatsApp groups – where images, videos, and details of pests and diseases can be shared – that include project collaborators, extension agents, and lead farmers. The virtual groups help maintain connections between the field and the lab and foster the real-time agricultural assistance necessary for addressing emerging threats.
“There is no choice but to get aligned to mass adoption of technology in agricultural research and extension,” Mbaka said. “There is opportunity to redefine how agriculture is supposed to be delivered in the 21st Century. Adoption of agri-tech has the potential to revolutionize food production systems for prosperity and ensure adequate food production during and post COVID-19.”
Cambodia
Siem Reap
In Cambodia, the surge of unemployment due to COVID-19 has forced many farmer families to adapt to new realities.
Take, for example, La Koeurn and her husband Say Sovanna, who live in Siem Reap. Their five-member family was forced to rely solely on their home vegetable garden and half-hectare rice field for food and income when they both lost their jobs due to the pandemic. The family simultaneously observed a major shift in demand for vegetables as tourists in Siem Reap significantly dwindled. What vegetables used to earn the family $100 a month reduced to just $25-$50 a month.
In Chriev Commune, another area of Siem Reap, Chet Chenda and her husband Yun Yoeurn are facing similar issues. Chenda is a vegetable grower and Yoeurn is a receptionist at a hotel, together typically earning up to $270 a month. When Yoeurn lost his job at the height of the pandemic, the family also had to rely on income elicited from selling vegetables that were declining in value. This earned the couple $32-$50 a month, a significant decrease in earnings.
“There are several female farmers whose husbands work in Siem Reap city as motor taxi, construction workers, or at the hotel and restaurants,” said Kim Hian Seng, an IPM IL coordinator from iDE. “Most of the husbands are losing jobs during this pandemic and all schools in Cambodia have been closed since March until now. These women are now taking extra burdens to look after the children.”
The IPM IL team in Cambodia advised the two families and others like them to apply IPM practices to boost yields and income. Farmer families began using seedling trays, for example, instead of putting seeds directly in the soil, to ensure healthier crop growth. Planting seeds in trays also allows for easy application of coco-peat, a sterile medium that helps produce strong seedlings.
The farmers were also encouraged to grow different kinds of vegetables, like Chinese kale. The crop can grow bountifully even with inconsistent weather, and can be sold for $1.00-$1.50/kg compared to crops they usually grow for only $0.25-$0.5/kg.
“Families remain positive,” said Seng, “as they can spend more time with family and are committed to being commercial growers by learning more from the project, particularly on other high-value crops such as cauliflower, tomato, and cherry tomato.”
Phnom Penh
As economies dramatically change amid COVID-19, so does the way information is communicated, which inevitably impacts farmers’ abilities to manage crop problems. For example, the IPM IL’s collaborators at the International Rice Research Institute(IRRI) in Phnom Penh were not able to widely promote an interactive mobile tool called Cellcard 3-2-1 System. The free call-in service helps farmers diagnose pest problems and combat them by applying IPM solutions.
Rica Flor, an IRRI scientist, explained that despite this gap in promotion, a service like Cellcard addresses the urgent need for knowledge and information farmers are feeling right now. Excitingly, she has observed at least 300 farmers utilizing the tool – mostly learning about it through word of mouth – to access agricultural assistance during the pandemic.
“In terms of extension,” Flor said, “diversifying the pathways to reach farmers with knowledge – including those that require face-to-face interactions and those that do not such as mobile or internet-based options – can support projects in continuing to reach their target audiences.”
Flor also remarked that in Cambodia, the pandemic led to a rise in displaced workers, especially migrant workers in Thailand and women working in the garment industry, who returned to rural areas of the country.
“They are now landless and are thus marginalized in terms of agricultural assistance,” she said.
This dilemma highlights, Flor emphasized, the value of local food production. Due to the closure of borders, Cambodia’s small businesses may have an opportunity to purchase from growers in rural areas for the fruits, vegetables, and grains they typically receive from neighboring countries.
Nepal
One of the crucial tenets of the IPM IL’s newest project – Feed the Future Nepal Integrated Pest Management (FTFNIPM), implemented by iDE, Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), and others – is inclusive transfer of IPM technologies. The pandemic, however, limited access to the spaces women typically rely on for information and income, such as collection centers and local markets where women sell vegetables.
Niki Maskey, a gender coordinator for the project, said that field technicians are working to meet the farmer demand for agricultural information by providing services through Community Business Facilitators (CBFs). CBFs are local farmer-entrepreneurs that help deliver supplies to rural farmers, including sustainable IPM solutions, such as pheromone traps. Maskey stated that this opportunity for access is especially important for women at this time.
“Small landholding farmers and marginalized communities in developing countries were already in crisis,” said Maskey. “Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic these barriers are likely to be huge and will continue to remain even after the situation improves…The barriers include decision-making opportunities for women farmers. Female farmers are unlikely to make decisions regarding their occupation. These decisions are most likely to be made by the male head of the family. Due to COVID-19, it might be difficult for the female farmers who once had the opportunity to make the [agricultural] decisions as the migrant male workers have returned to their home and are willing to be in charge of the activities/decisions in agricultural activities.”
Additionally, while IPM IL typically offers large in-person trainings on IPM solutions in Nepal communities, the program has now shifted to disseminating agricultural information to farmers by way of bulk text messages and over the radio. The messages include pest identification details, management methods, contact details for assistance, and more.
Also delayed by the pandemic was the program’s work on fall armyworm – which relies on introducing biocontrol of the pest – as well
as training on safe pesticide use. The IPM IL has thus shifted to virtual webinars to maintain information dissemination. Online trainings have focused on areas such as safe pesticide disposal and spraying methods and mass production of natural enemies to manage the fall armyworm, eliciting hundreds of participants including private sector professionals, NGOs, and government officials.
Bangladesh
Due to COVID-19, the experimental field plots set up by IPM IL collaborators at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) were delayed. With crucial data on pests such as Tuta absoluta, the fall armyworm, and mango fruit fly delayed for collection, mitigating their spread will also be delayed.
Yousuf Mian, the IPM IL’s project coordinator in Bangladesh, said that while these activities are being delayed for the season, long-term impacts will be felt by smallholder farmers.
“Agricultural activities are based on season,” Mian said. “If you miss the sowing season of a crop, you also miss the harvesting season. That means you lose your income. Farmers could also have a field at harvesting stage [amid COVID-19], but are not able to harvest it because of labor shortage or because of the high wages of labor. All these things will seriously affect family well-being.”
Photo credits: Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management
Sara Hendery is the Communications Coordinator for the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management. Since 2018, she has been responsible for documenting the program’s activities around the world aimed at improving food security and farmer livelihoods in developing countries.
Daniel Sumner is the Assistant Director for the Women and Gender in International Development Program from Virginia Tech’s Center for International Research, Education, and Development. Since 2014, he has been supporting the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management’s network of researchers, scientists, and implementing partners to engage with the gendered dimensions of pest management and agricultural research for development.