ABSTRACT
We examine the response of rural Ugandan households to a large aggregate shock, the Covid-19 pandemic, during and one year after the first lockdown in March 2020. Using 6 rounds of phone surveys from 558 households in western Uganda, we find that household income recovery from the lockdown differs by whether households had a business pre-pandemic. After an initial sharp fall, the incomes of those without a business have recovered to pre-pandemic levels. However, the relatively better-off households with a business before the pandemic still have one-third lower income, due to sustained closure of businesses even after the end of the first lockdown restrictions. Additionally, business-owning households have 30% lower wealth one-year into the pandemic, driven by 44% lower assets, 45% drop in savings, and a 15 fold increase in net-borrowing, suggesting long-term damage. Our findings point to the need to support households who face dwindling finances to fall back on.
ABSTRACT
Food security in many developing countries has been threatened by several factors such as unequal land distribution, ineffective land reform policies, inefficient agricultural value chains, and an increasing number of climate disasters. In Nigeria, these threats are exacerbated by rapid population growth and extreme weather events, which have resulted in farmer-herder conflicts in most agrarian communities. This paper examines the differential impacts of the incidence and severity of farmer-herder resource use conflicts on food insecurity of rural households in Nigeria. We employ a two-stage predictor substitution model to estimate survey data collected from 401 rural households in Nigeria. The empirical results show that both the incidence and the severity of farmer-herder conflicts significantly increase food insecurity, and the severity of these conflicts has a larger impact than their incidence. The estimates of the conditional mixed process models confirm the robustness of our results. Additional analysis reveals that the incidence and severity of farmer-herder conflicts positively and significantly affect food insecurity, measured by the number of days with limited varieties of food eaten. Our findings highlight the importance of policy interventions that address ongoing farmer-herder conflicts in affected countries like Nigeria to enhance food security from a sustainable development perspective.
ABSTRACT
Nigeria has experienced bouts of violent conflict in different regions since its independence leading to significant loss of life. In this article, we explore the average effect of exposure to violent conflict generally on labor supply in agriculture. Using a nationally representative panel dataset for Nigeria from 2010 to 2015, in combination with armed conflict data, we estimate the average effect of exposure to violent conflict on a household's farm labor supply. Our findings suggest that on average, exposure to violent conflict significantly reduces total family labor supply hours in agriculture. We also find that the decline in family labor supply is driven by a significant decline in the household head's total number of hours on the farm.
ABSTRACT
Impacts from the coronavirus pandemic have depressed market returns to corn and soybean farmers in the Midwest, extending pressures that have existed since 2013 and worsened by trade disputes with China. Without large ad hoc federal aid, income on Midwestern grain farms would have been quite low and the ongoing cash flow crunch much worse. Farmland prices have not adjusted downward, in part due to continuing ad hoc federal aid, but also because interest rates have been historically very low. The financial (solvency) position of Midwestern grain farms is surprisingly strong because of the strength in land values. However, the financial condition of Midwestern row-crop agriculture could deteriorate markedly if recent and large infusions of ad hoc federal aid dissipates or if interest rates rise sharply.