Impact of COVID‐19 on Bangladesh's agriculture sector and the ways forward to recovery: An overview

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Md. Sayemul Islam,Md. Emran Hossain,Festus Victor Bekun,Md. Hayder Khan Sujan
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2862

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Impact of COVID-19 on Bangladesh's agriculture sector and

the ways forward to recovery: An overview

Md. Sayemul Islam

1

| Md. Emran Hossain

2

| Festus Victor Bekun

3,4

|

Md. Hayder Khan Sujan

5

1

Faculty of Agricultural Economics & Rural

Sociology, Bangladesh Agricultural University,

Mymensingh, Bangladesh

2

Department of Agricultural Finance and

Banking, Bangladesh Agricultural University,

Mymensingh, Bangladesh

3

Faculty of Economics Administrative and

Social sciences, Istanbul Gelisim University,

Istanbul, Turkey

4

Adnan Kassar School of Business, Lebanese

American University, Beirut, Lebanon

5

Department of Development and Poverty

Studies, Faculty of Agribusiness Management,

Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka,

Bangladesh

Correspondence

Festus Victor Bekun, Faculty of Economics

Administrative and Social sciences, Istanbul

Gelisim University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Email: fbekun@gelisim.edu.tr

The COVID-19 outbreak has left an indelible effect on Bangladesh's agriculture

sector, like that of most developing countries. Considering that agriculture is the cor-

nerstone of Bangladesh's economy, we made an effort to compile a detailed scenario

of COVID-19's effect on it through a relevant literature review. Since no significant

studies outlined a complete picture of the pandemic's impact on agriculture, our

study ventured to reveal the circumstances of each sub-sector of agriculture. During

the early phases of the pandemic, farmers engaged in agriculture production got poor

prices, with the majority of them incurring losses. Labor shortages and input scarcity

were the most prevailing hindrances across all the sub-sectors. The export volume

seemed to shrink hugely, hurting the country's GDP. The supply chain for agricultural

commodities was disrupted as a result of the lockdown and mobility restrictions,

which resulted in the elimination of the majority of intermediaries. Unprecedented

challenges occurred in the input and output markets, as well as in the agro-industries,

exacerbating the situation. However, while the vegetables and poultry sub-sectors

recovered utterly and the dairy sub-sector somehow managed to stabilize, other sub-

sectors are still grieving. This study highlighted some policies that can mitigate the

miseries of the agriculture sector and overcome further potential threats in

Bangladesh and other agriculture-led developing countries.

KEYWORDS

agriculture, Agri-export, Agro-based industries, Bangladesh, COVID-19, Recovery

1|INTRODUCTION

In order to contain the rapid spread of highly contagious COVID-19,

governments have implemented movement restrictions, lockdowns,

and even shutdowns (Adhikari et al., 2021; Hossain et al., 2021,2022;

Kumar et al., 2020). As a result of this boundary-locked situation,

along with health and education, all other sectors of the economy,

and export–import of raw materials and perishable goods received

depressing shocks directly or indirectly (Aduhene & Osei-

Assibey, 2021; Chakraborty & Maity, 2020; Saha et al., 2022), agricul-

ture is no exception.

Agriculture is one of the most seriously affected sectors around

the world owing to coronavirus outbreaks (Ali & Khan, 2020; Kumar

et al., 2020; Nayak et al., 2021). The supply and value chain of agricul-

ture involves a number of activities from production to final consump-

tion, such as collecting seeds and input materials, sorting, grading,

processing, packing, and marketing agricultural products (Khan

et al., 2020). All of these operations necessitated an unimpeded flow

of agricultural inputs and migrant agricultural labors (Jambor

et al., 2020). Despite the current threat given by climate change chal-

lenges, the COVID-19 pandemic regrettably had an impact on agricul-

tural productivity (Guntukula, 2020; Praveen & Sharma, 2019;

Praveen & Sharma, 2020a,2020b). However, coronavirus preventive

measures such as movement restrictions, border closures, and obliga-

tory lockdowns have not only hindered agriculture's production

but also its supply and value chain (Alam & Khatun, 2021;

Received: 1 September 2021 Revised: 21 August 2022 Accepted: 3 April 2023

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2862

J Public Affairs. 2023;23:e2862. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of15

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2862