Impact of Covid-19 on Crop Diversification in Keonjhar District of Odisha, India

The growing literature evidenced among the three sectors including agriculture, service and manufacture; it is argued that agriculture sector is least affected during the pandemic. In response to this argument, this paper attempts to understand the impact of Covid-19 to diversified crops in Keonjhar district of Odisha, India. In order to do so, data have been collected through primary survey with self-administered questionnaire from 140 farm households. Further, Simpson Diversified Index and Tobit Model have been employed to understand the degree of crop diversification and the hurdles faced by the farmers during the study period. The marginal effect analysis revealed that age, yield loss, cost to harvest, transportation cost, labour problem, distance to market and restricted hours of field work negatively affected the crop diversification whereas only education, landholding size, and harvesting are positively and significantly influencing the crop diversifications. Whereas, the available literature showed that agriculture sector in India is less affected than the two others, our findings of this exercise reveal that like others sector agriculture sector is also affected. Therefore, this may plausibly be helpful to policy making for holistic development of the sector.