blue curves) vs. the average wage related to nonagricultural activities (“nonagri wages,” brown curves) in India's rural areas (i.e. “rural wages”). The average wages are here differentiated into nominal and real wage, respectively. In general, progression in the real wage is linked to changes in the overall national GDP of India, whereas progression in nominal wages relate to the market conditions for agricultural products.
Figure 4.3 Timeline of Finance Minister announces lockdown restrictions in India.
Source: https://prsindia.org.
Figure 4.4 (Top panel) Variations in the average nominal wage (agriculturally related vs. nonagriculturally related in rural areas). (Bottom panel) Variations in the average real wage in rural areas based on data from RBI, accessed 16 May 2020. (See insert for color representation of the figure.)
From 2015 to 2020, the average nominal wage has decreased from 4.3 to 0.86% (Figure 4.2). Meanwhile, the real wage exhibited large fluctuations but as of December 2019 is negative for both the agricultural wage and nonagricultural wage. As expected this is synchronized with the drop in the national GDP of India seen from 2018 to 2019 (Figure 4.1). Meanwhile, the former seems to suggest that the current agricultural production in India is substantially higher than the demand. Combined, the data depict a situation, where despite an overall longtime positive growth of the Indian agriculture.
4.6 Impact on the Economy of Indian Farmers
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has confirmed a total of 15 500 active cases of COVID‐19 with 592 cases of death in India by 21 April 2020 (www.mohfw.gov.in). The Prime Minister of India has already declared a nationwide “lockdown” on 24 March 2020 and now extended till 03 May 2020 (Phase 1: 25 March 2020–14 April 2020 [21 days] and Phase 2: 15 April 2020–3 May 2020 [19 days]). This lockdown has definitely impacted the farmers and farming operations because it coincides with the harvesting period of Rabi crops in the month of April/May 2020. The agricultural sector of India is encountering serious issues in hiring laborers. Since agriculture produce is an essential commodity, it is exempted from the directives of this lockdown, which is creating many problems to this sector, i.e. cutting and harvesting of rabi crops, other seeds and pulses, main associated issues storage and sale of crop in the mandi markets (Varshney et al. 2020b). The Indian agricultural sector, which suffered recently due to an uneven rainfall, is facing another hit due to disruption in activities as a consequence of the lockdown ensuing from the outbreak of COVID‐19, because the harvesting season for Rabi crops is progressing rapidly, raising concerns regarding the management of matured crops by the farmers. However, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) have released advisories involving crop, livestock, horticulture, and related enterprises in the wake of COVID‐19 spread and, accordingly, practices specific to the state have been also suggested, considering the current situation. Experts of Krishi Vigran Kendras (KVKs) of the state have also circulated these advisories further among the farmers through mobile messaging, WhatsApp, and other interventions through the use of social sites. So far, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, a total of 679 related messages and advisories have been circulated by the KVK experts using Kisan Call Centers (Varshney et al. 2020a), mKISAN, and WhatsApp benefitting approximately 65 thousand, 4.20 lakh, and 49 thousand farmers, respectively.
With an increase in the severity of the global pandemic and subsequent rise in the cost of human life due to SARS‐CoV‐2, outbreak of the novel COVID‐19 is adversely impacting the world economy (Kumar et al. 2020). India has been severely impacted by the SARS‐CoV‐2 outbreak (Singh et al. 2020), thus magnifying the preexisting risk to its outlook. However in the next kharif season agriculture practices are impacted due to nonavailability of agro‐based economy, storage and prevailing state of COVID‐19 disease (Kumar et al. 2020). The agricultural sector has been adversely affected due to the lockdown ensuing from the outbreak of COVID‐19. This nationwide lockdown has impacted the economic system. The World Bank, in its South Asia Economic update report, while assessing the impact of the COVID‐19 outbreak, has estimated the Indian economy to decelerate to 4.8% in 2020 and projected a sharp growth deceleration to 2.8% in a baseline scenario in fiscal 2021.
Although it is evident that farming is the only essential occupation, which can combat the food and livestock needs, some states in India, namely Punjab and Haryana, which are known as the “food bowls” of the country, are encountering major distress. The prime issues include appropriate operating of the machinery required for harvesting and threshing, winnowing, packaging, and transportation of the Rabi crop. Complete interruption of services has rendered the farmers more skeptical of their fate. Permission from the Government to harvest Rabi crops through the process of machine harvesting has encouraged the farmers. The implementation of the COVID‐19 emergency response and health system preparedness package has been planned by the state government in Phase 1, 2, and 3. The center has funded a five‐year scheme worth INR 15 000 crores to strengthen the nation and state level systems as the country is combating to control the infectious SARS‐CoV‐2.
4.6.1 Lack of Agricultural Labor Holds Up Harvesting
ICAR, which is the apex body of the government of India assessing the impact of the lockdown ensuing from the outbreak of the COVID‐19 on agriculture and its allied sectors, is preparing the roadmap to minimize its demerits to prevent its impact on the food system (Chander 2020; Gupta et al. 2020a,b). While the government has exempted many agricultural operations including harvesting to the movement of produce to the markets according to the directives of the lockdown, ICAR has issued specific advisories to the farmers directing them to take general precautions and safety measures during crop harvesting, post‐harvest operations, seed storage, and their marketing (Khan et al. 2016). However, considering the current situation and spread of the pandemic throughout the country, it is apparent that the farmers have little to hope for. Excluding the farmers of the Bundelkhand region, there can be no better assessment of the adverse impact of the lockdown ensuing from the outbreak of the COVID‐19 than that was observed with other farmers of the country.
The nationwide lockdown has increased the social and economic burden of the farmers in the Bundelkhand region, shattering their hopes and sinking them into the debt trap (APEDA 2019). Subsequently, the farmers of Bundelkhand have employed all their resources to meet the challenges of unpredictable weather. However, these attempts have only been documented through official paperwork (Chaba and Damodara 2020). Due to the absence of any worthy support system, the farmers have put everything at stake to take loans and plan for the next crop season. All efforts to break the longstanding belief that Indian farmers are risk‐averse have been made (Figure 4.5). They have experimented and invested for their betterment.
As per the government's data from Indian solicits, an average of 263 million people are directly engaged in the farming and agriculture sector. Of these, over 55% do not own
