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Did COVID-19 Market Disruptions Disrupt Food Security? Evidence from Households in Rural Liberia and Malawi

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  • Aggarwal, Shilpa
  • Jeong, Dahyeon
  • Kumar, Naresh
  • Park, David S.
  • Robinson, Jonathan
  • Spearot, Alan

Abstract

We quantify the effect of market disruptions due to COVID-19 on the lives of householdsin rural areas of Liberia and Malawi, utilizing panel data from phone surveys that were implemented as part of a randomized cash transfer experiment. The surveys began collection several months before the pandemic and have continued throughout it. The household survey included a consistent set of internationally accepted and validated questions on food security (the householddietary diversity score, the household hunger scale, and the food consumption score). In both countries, market activity was severely disrupted and we observe large declines in income among market vendors, but we find no evidence of declines in food security for households in the short run. Even though we observe no adverse effects of the lockdowns on food securityamong the control group, cash transfers improved dietary quality and quantity over the low levels observed at baseline.

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  • Aggarwal, Shilpa & Jeong, Dahyeon & Kumar, Naresh & Park, David S. & Robinson, Jonathan & Spearot, Alan, 2020. "Did COVID-19 Market Disruptions Disrupt Food Security? Evidence from Households in Rural Liberia and Malawi," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt40r546sv, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt40r546sv
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    1. Ceballos, Francisco & Kannan, Samyuktha & Kramer, Berber, 2020. "Impacts of a national lockdown on smallholder farmers’ income and food security: Empirical evidence from two states in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
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    2. Bloem, Jeffrey & Michler, Jeffrey & Josephson, Anna & Rudin-Rush, Lorin, 2022. "COVID-19 Working Paper: Food Insecurity During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Four African Countries," Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, vol. 2022(Administr), July.
    3. Abay, Kibrom A. & Amare, Mulubrhan & Tiberti, Luca & Andam, Kwaw S. & Wang, Michael, 2022. "COVID-19-induced disruptions of school feeding services exacerbate food insecurity in Nigeria," IFPRI book chapters, in: COVID-19 and global food security: Two years later, chapter 23, pages 135-137, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    4. Yonas T. Bahta & Joseph P. Musara, 2022. "Quantifying the Impact of COVID-19 Relief Vouchers Schemes on Food Security: Empirical Evidence Insights from South Africa," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, August.
    5. Kibrom A. Abay & Guush Berhane & John Hoddinott & Kibrom Tafere, 2023. "COVID-19 and Food Security in Ethiopia: Do Social Protection Programs Protect?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(2), pages 373-402.
    6. Chakravorty, Bhaskar & Bhatiya, Apurav Yash & Imbert, Clément & Lohnert, Maximilian & Panda, Poonam & Rathelot, Roland, 2023. "Impact of the COVID-19 crisis on India’s rural youth: Evidence from a panel survey and an experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    7. Ezra Berkhout & Lucie Sovová & Anne Sonneveld, 2023. "The Role of Urban–Rural Connections in Building Food System Resilience," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-22, January.
    8. Lindsay M. Jaacks & Divya Veluguri & Rajesh Serupally & Aditi Roy & Poornima Prabhakaran & GV Ramanjaneyulu, 2021. "Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural production, livelihoods, and food security in India: baseline results of a phone survey," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(5), pages 1323-1339, October.
    9. Amare, Mulubrhan & Abay, Kibrom A. & Tiberti, Luca & Chamberlin, Jordan, 2021. "COVID-19 and food security: Panel data evidence from Nigeria," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    10. Adjognon,Guigonan Serge & Bloem,Jeffrey R. & Sanoh,Aly, 2020. "The Coronavirus Pandemic and Food Security : Evidence from West Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9474, The World Bank.
    11. Lowe, Matt & Nadhanael, G.V. & Roth, Benjamin N., 2021. "India’s food supply chain during the pandemic," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    12. Adjognon, Guigonan Serge & Bloem, Jeffrey R. & Sanoh, Aly, 2021. "The coronavirus pandemic and food security: Evidence from Mali," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    13. Zezza,Alberto & Mcgee,Kevin Robert & Wollburg,Philip Randolph & Assefa,Thomas Woldu & Gourlay,Sydney, 2022. "From Necessity to Opportunity : Lessons for Integrating Phone and In-Person Data Collectionfor Agricultural Statistics in a Post-Pandemic World," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10168, The World Bank.
    14. Mahreen Mahmud & Emma Riley, 2023. "Adapting to an aggregate shock: The impact of the Covid-19 crisis on rural households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 19-36, March.
    15. Liette Vasseur & Heather VanVolkenburg & Isabelle Vandeplas & Katim Touré & Safiétou Sanfo & Fatoumata Lamarana Baldé, 2021. "The Effects of Pandemics on the Vulnerability of Food Security in West Africa—A Scoping Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-12, November.
    16. Bloem, Jeffrey & Farris, Jarrad, 2021. "COVID-19 Working Paper: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Food Security in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Review of the Emerging Microeconomic Literature," Administrative Publications 327341, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    17. Valerie Mueller & Karen A. Grépin & Atonu Rabbani & Bianca Navia & Anne S. W. Ngunjiri & Nicole Wu, 2022. "Food insecurity and COVID‐19 risk in low‐ and middle‐income countries," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(1), pages 92-109, March.

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    Keywords

    Social and Behavioral Sciences; COVID-19; market disruption; food security; cash transfers; Liberia; Malawi;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets

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