Blog The Impacts of COVID-19 on Farmers' Income and Food Security In The Globalized Cassava Value Chains In Cambodia and Vietnam

Cassava is a major industrial crop in Southeast Asia, cultivated to meet the growing global demand for starch, animal feed and bioethanol. It is largely cultivated by smallholder farmers, including some of the poorest upland farmers eking out a living on marginal land. The connection of these farmers to the vibrant, growing global cassava value chains has been credited with lifting many smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia out of poverty.

But alongside these benefits, engagement with globalized value chains has also been criticized as exposing smallholder farmers, many of whom do not have access to insurance or credit, to exogenous global shocks and hence to increased economic vulnerabilities and food and nutrition insecurity. This concern was highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted Southeast Asian governments to implement stringent measures restricting movement and border crossing in an effort to mitigate the spread of the virus.

The study focuses on the early phase of the pandemic (by the end of 2020) characterized by uncertainty and novelty in policy response. At the time, both Cambodia and Vietnam were relatively successful in containing the domestic spread of COVID-19.

Moreover, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the global demand for cassava starch and chips was high in 2020, and cassava farmers were expected to benefit from high farm gate prices for cassava.

In the pivotal first year, despite strong policy responses and border restrictions, the pandemic did not cause major disruptions to the cassava value chains in the region. The demand for cassava remained strong and prices were high. However, we found that Cambodia and Vietnam experienced very different effects that can help us to learn about how each group coped with this new stressor.

In Vietnam, only 18% of cassava farmers reported any negative effects of the pandemic on cassava income. Farmers experienced more negative effects on their non-farming activities than on their actual farming (Figure 1). The poorest farmers that primarily grew cassava actually experienced smaller income shocks than wealthier households, whose incomes were diversified into non-farming sectors that suffered more from pandemic restrictions and impacts.

In Cambodia, 58% of cassava farmers reported negative impacts to their cassava income caused by the COVID-19 crisis (Figure 1). The poorest farmers, who were more dependent on cassava income, reported larger negative income shocks and experienced higher likelihood of food insecurity due to reductions in cash income.

Several factors affected the level of impact, including ad-hoc border restrictions and simultaneous unrelated environmental shocks from flooding. Importantly, as there are few cassava processing facilities within Cambodia, farmers rely on more complex value chains to export raw cassava roots or dried chips to neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam for processing or re-export. Ad-hoc border closures increased uncertainties involved with cross-border trade, and this was linked to fluctuations in prices - especially on the Thai border. Uncertainty provoked some farmers to sell their cassava crops early to cope with the crisis (Figure 2). Early harvesting also prevented some farmers from saving sufficient seed to re-plant their crops, leading to an additional expense in the next growing season.

Vietnamese cassava farmers used their own monetary savings to cope with the crisis in the short term (Figure 2). Buoyed by high cassava prices and supported by greater proximity to processing facilities, the economic toll was far lower than for their Cambodian counterparts.
 

This research was funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM), the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) and the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) under the project on Developing Sustainable Solutions for Cassava Disease in Mainland Southeast Asia.

The survey in Vietnam was carried out by the Agriculture Genetics Institute in Ha Noi and the Institute of Agricultural Sciences for Southern Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City. The International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) implemented the data collection in Cambodia.

The opinions expressed here belong to the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of PIM, RTB, ACIAR, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT or CGIAR. We declare no conflict of interests.