Impact of COVID on the Agriculture Value Chain in Bihar
Impact of COVID on the Agriculture Value Chain in Bihar
The project’s objective was to assess the effect of COVID-19 on the agriculture value chain in Bihar for the Environment Defence Fund (EDF) and analyse the effect of DeHaat Agri revolution services in Bihar. DeHaat Agri revolution is a start-up that connects farmers to suppliers and buyers through a single platform, providing them with inputs for farming, advisory information, and marketing linkage.
Sambodhi was tasked to collect data from DeHaat affiliated and non-DeHaat farmers across three districts of Bihar where DeHaat services are currently active, namely, West Champaran, Samastipur, and Vaishali. Four telephonic surveys were conducted to assess distinct sub-objectives.
Survey 1: Challenges faced in the supply chain due to COVID with a focus on questions concerning harvest, sale, and market for the Rabi season
Survey 2: Challenges faced in the supply chain due to COVID with a focus on questions concerning land preparation and input procurement for the Kharif season
Survey 3: Experiences and challenges of DeHaat micro-entrepreneurs as they interacted with farmers during the lockdown
Survey 4: Challenges faced by farmers in accessing inputs for harvest and market linkage for the Kharif season
The study drew an understanding of farmers’ current situation in Bihar post-COVID compared to pre-COVID times, as well as the scope of DeHaat services in these areas.
Sambodhi contributed to developing survey tools, training the enumerators accordingly, monitoring the data collection process, and analyzing the data. Data was cleaned and analyzed for all four surveys. Sambodhi helped EDF develop the software for its data team and tested it after developing each survey tool. The synthesis of findings and the development and submission of separate factsheets for each survey followed data collection and analysis.
The details of approximately 700 farmers for surveys 1 and 2 and the details of micro-entrepreneurs for Survey 3 were provided by EDF. Sambodhi also developed tools for Survey 3 and submitted factsheets for Surveys 1 and 2.