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Thinking ahead: Drought resilience and COVID-19

WASAG working group on drought preparedness











FAO and UNCCD. 2021. Thinking ahead: Drought resilience and COVID-19. WASAG working group on drought preparednessRome, FAO



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    Nearly 75 percent of Lesotho’s population live in rural areas and depend on farming for their livelihoods. The proportion of people living below the poverty line is increasing, and arable land is extremely limited (9 percent of the total area). When the El Niño-induced drought struck in 2015, the agricultural sector was strongly impacted, and the Government of Lesotho declared a state of drought emergency. Many households did not plant at all, leading to a drastic decline in food availability and harvest. In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) and the Bureau of Statistics, this project provided urgently needed resources to initiate support for the most vulnerable households in the country. This project aimed to enhance resilience, rebuild agricultural capacities and support the production of short-cycle vegetables and staple crops, thereby increasing food availability and diversity for those most negatively affected by the drought.
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    The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on food security in Indonesia. Ensuring food production and availability is a major concern for policymakers. The Indonesian government has historically made various efforts in this regard, encouraging and providing facilitation to farmers as the main producers of food, such as through the supply of agricultural inputs. In responding to the pandemic, the Indonesian government designed several programmes to protect farmers as food producers. The government was already carrying out these programmes before COVID-19 broke out but it increased their number and frequency during the pandemic. This paper examines the situation for several agricultural commodities as a result of the travel restrictions implemented under COVID-19. These restrictions affected the flow of goods, including of agricultural inputs and outputs. In addition, the paper compares conditions before and during the pandemic, assessing this within the broader context of government actions to address the challenges posed by COVID-19. It employs descriptive analysis, trend analysis and comparative analysis. The paper ends with an analysis of the adequacy of food consumption and food security in Indonesia and of the Social Safety Net (Jaring Pengaman Sosial – JPS) programme. As a result, the agriculture sector in Indonesia has withstood the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and its early restrictions relatively well. This can be seen in the economic growth (year on year) of the Indonesian agriculture sector, which was consistently positive for eight quarters (from the first quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021) while at the same time total GDP growth in 2020 was negative. Specifically, the performance and relative resilience of the agriculture sector during the pandemic can be observed on several indicators, such as production, productivity, prices and trade in a number of main commodities, described below. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for all six commodities studied, no major shocks were observed on several indicators, including production, productivity, prices and trade. There were also no major shocks to food resilience. Responsive policies and assured provision of inputs were very important in facing the threat of food stock uncertainty. Indonesia’s government implemented several social safety net programmes, which suppressed the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security. Policy recommendations for the government, to ensure the continued stability and resilience of agriculture and the food system.

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