On the susceptibility and vulnerability of agricultural value chains to COVID-19

In the context of the major potential impacts of COVID-19 on agriculture and agricultural trade in developing countries, this Viewpoint discusses the advantages of adopting a conceptual framework previously used to discuss the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on agriculture and rural livelihoods. The framework is made up of two pairs of linked concepts: 1) Susceptibility or the chance of an individual becoming infected; 2) Resistance or the ability of an individual to avoid infection; 3) Vulnerability or the likelihood of significant impacts occurring at individual, household or community level; and 4) Resilience: the active responses that enable people to avoid the worst impacts of an epidemic at different levels or to recover faster to a level accepted as normal. This framework allows the clear formulation of key questions for COVID-19: factors in the labor process itself that make people more or less susceptible; broader socio-economic and biophysical determinants of susceptibility; factors that make farm households, food enterprises and value chains more vulnerable to the impacts of the pandemic; and aspects of COVID-19 responses by governments and the private sector that might increase vulnerability. Brief examples of susceptibility of value chain operations and of their vulnerability to COVID-19 lockdown measures are given. A focus on resistance and resilience encourages investigation of local-level responses by communities and NGOs, which with appropriate monitoring and learning could be scaled up.