Sustainable Agriculture Systems and Technologies

In the state of Uttar Pradesh, after a complete lockdown Phase 1: 25 March 2020–14 April 2020 (21 days) of 17 days, the total cases of COVID‐19 have risen above 500 with 35 deaths, although approximately 119 have recovered. Fortunately, this pandemic has not yet reached the stage of community spread (after stage 2: 15 April 2020–3 May 2020 [19 days]). Owing to complete lockdown, the daily wage earners, agricultural marketers, agricultural farmers, consumers, and related stakeholders are likely to suffer enormously. Therefore, the Government of Uttar Pradesh has issued two office orders permitting suppliers to continue the movement of honey, vegetables, mushrooms, fruits, milk, and related horticultural produce in the state. Secondly, permission to avail plant protection chemicals, seed fertilizers, agricultural commodities, and farm machineries has been granted. The effects of these efforts are apparent in the urban areas, as witnessed by the lack of panic in the purchase of fruits and vegetables in the cities. The ICAR has also issued advisories on specific farm practices applicable to this state, which have been circulated among farmers in every district by the KVKs.

As the laborers from the nearby cities and Delhi have migrated to their respective villages, the availability of laborers for carrying out farm operations has increased. As a result, the daily wages at the village level have dropped by 15–20%. If available, their rates have increased by 30–40%. Due to reduced number of wholesalers in the mandis, the sale of vegetables has decreased, causing distress to the vegetable growers (Gaydon et al. 2017; Shyamsundar et al. 2019; Prasad 2020). However, the income of vegetable growers, and, in turn, the retailers has increased because of the higher prices quoted by them. The price of majority of the seasonal vegetables like cucurbits, brinjal, cabbage, potato, cauliflower, etc. has increased by 40–45%. Similarly, the fruit prices such as apple, grapes, banana, coconut, oranges, and many more have increased by 30–40%. Similarly, dairy farmers are experiencing the crisis of increased rates of feeds and concentrates (Gupta et al. 2020a,b). They need to sell milk at lower prices than the prevailing rates and even less quantities.

After lockdown, people below the poverty line are likely to overcome the impact slowly. However, farmers are expecting a recovery from the anticipated cash crash. A declaration of subvention for three to six months was previously assessed, while an initial step toward defeating the COVID‐19 has received an overwhelming response. However, currently, harvesters are expecting clarification on the following questions: what shall be the source of income for the farmers? and will the money come from own sources? What is the solution to mitigate the issue of migrated labor? These issues are not addressed in the present plan. An extension of the lockdown shall allow generation of more factors, allowing further predictions of its impact on the economy of the farmers.

The government of all countries should take strict and significant actions to keep up with the control of the virus. Socioeconomic decisions of the respective countries could significantly impact the final outcome and an alarming situation in the future could be predicted, because we have also considered these factors in our report. This study may assist the planners in India to take stringent actions to prevent further spread of the virus by developing timely strategies and effectuating their implementation based on the different levels of severities of COVID‐19 among the population of India presented here. It is highly desirable that other global regions take strict action to reduce exposure of their people for curtailing the spread of infection and provide timely support to facilitate the recovery of infected individuals.

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