Agricultural Cooperatives and COVID-19 in Southeast Africa. The Role of Managerial Capital for Rural Resilience

Abstract

While the health impact of COVID-19 in most African countries appears modest, the impact of social distancing measures, closing of markets and reduced mobility is felt across the board. Domestic, labor-intensive and traditional food value chains and the smallholders they serve appear to be particularly affected. During a systemic shock where idiosyncratic risk coping strategies fail, collective or organizational resilience becomes of the essence to protect the livelihoods of smallholders. In this study, we have used pre- and during-shock data on agricultural cooperatives from Southeast Africa to understand how resilient these smallholder-owned organizations are. We find that many organizations could not countervail market-disruptions and fell into a state of dormancy during the pandemic. One reason for this is that collective decision-making was heavily affected by the banning of gatherings. Only a few organizations devised innovative solutions to maintain the market linkages of rural smallholders. The lack of resilience demonstrated by most cooperatives appears to be associated with organizational immaturity, large membership size, elite capture and limited business-orientation, which underscore a general lack of managerial capital.

COVID-19 and the fragility of Brazilian small farming resilience

“…Therefore, the temporary close of it, direct affected the farmers budget (Preiss, 2020). In this context, Francesconi et al (2021) points out that rural cooperative organizations can help smallholder-members access new markets. Nevertheless, the success of these cooperatives is directly associated with their level of maturity.…”

“…In Kenya, households food insecurity increased 8 percentage points within 30 days of the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions (Huss et al, 2021). Francesconi et al (2021) highlights that even rural communities with zero cases of COVID-19 can have labor shortages causing delays in harvesting activities and aggravating the hunger and food insecurity.…”

Strategi Pengelolaan Usahatani Kelapa Sawit Rakyat Masa Pandemi Covid-19 di Kecamatan STM Hilir Kabupaten Deli Serdang, Provinsi Sumatera Utara, Indonesia

“…Pandemi CoronaVirus Disease-2019 (covid-19) yang terjadi sejak tahun 2019 berdampak serius pada berbagai sektor ekonomi, bukan hanya di Indonesia, tetapi pada hampir seluruh Negara di dunia. Francesconi et al, (2021) menyampaikan akibat pandemi covid-19 di Malawi pemasaran hasil pertanian terganggu. Petani mengalami kerugian dan penurunan pendapatan, demikian juga di Uganda, petani kecil yang bercocok tanam dan berkebun tidak dapat melanjutkan usahataninya karena terbatasnya akses input produksi (Francesconi et al, 2021).…”

“…Francesconi et al, (2021) menyampaikan akibat pandemi covid-19 di Malawi pemasaran hasil pertanian terganggu. Petani mengalami kerugian dan penurunan pendapatan, demikian juga di Uganda, petani kecil yang bercocok tanam dan berkebun tidak dapat melanjutkan usahataninya karena terbatasnya akses input produksi (Francesconi et al, 2021).…”

“…Berdasarkan hasil wawancara dengan petani responden di daerah penelitian dan mengacu pada penelitian terdahulu terkait dengan dampak pandemi covid-19 terhadap sektor pertanian (Francesconi et al, 2021), dampak pandemi terhadap pendapatan petani (Obayelu et al, 2021) Francesconi et al, (2021) juga menyampaikan akibat pandemi covid-19, petani di Malawi terkendala dalam membeli input usahatani dalam memasuki musim tanam. Disamping itu proses pemasaran hasil pertanian turut terganggu akibat terbatasnya alat transportasi.…”