Tropentag 2020, September 9 - 11, virtual conference, Germany "Food and nutrition security and its resilience to global crises"

Effects of Livelihood Assets on Food Security of Rural Households in the COVID-19 Condition

¹Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Iran
²Leibniz Centre for Agric. Landscape Res. (ZALF), Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries (SusLAND), Germany

Abstract

The outbreak of coronavirus in December 2019 resulted so far in about 3 million virus-infected cases and a significant number of human deaths worldwide and a global stage of emergency got declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO). On a global level, the pandemic shows negative impacts on all sectors, including: economic, social, cultural and educational, with a growing body of studies underway. So far, the studies tend to focus on health policies and technical initiatives (i.e., hardware aspects), such as the causative agent of the disease, pathogenesis epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment and preventive interventions. These interventions are provided for the urban citizens, encompassing a substantial portion of the human population. However, people in rural areas are so far neglected while they usually have weaker infrastructure, and fewer health and economic facilities to cope with such crisis. To mitigate the lack of knowledge on effects of coronavirus particularly in rural areas in the developing world, this study presents findings on the effect of livelihood assets on food security during the Corona period in rural areas of southern Iran. The results show that households are not in a favourable position in terms of food security because more than 70% of them are in a state of food insecurity and their biggest problem during pandemic has been their inability to prepare a balanced diet and worry about running out of food. Also, results regarding the effects of corona virus on livelihood assets (financial, psychological, physical, human, social and natural) show that coronavirus has the highest effect on financial and psychological resources. Furthermore, results show a significant difference between the effects of coronavirus and food security levels. Moreover, the results of rural households' livelihoods assist on the levels of food security in corona virus conditions showed that four assets including psychological, physical, human and financial have positive and significant effects on rural household food security.

Keywords: COVID-19, food security, sustainable livelihoods, vulnerability

Contact Address: Masoud Yazdanpanah, Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, 744581 Ahvaz, Iran, e-mail: masoudyazdangmail.com