Many people agree with the claim that the COVID 19 pandemia is going to change our lives beyond social distancing measures. Impacts will probably differ among different dimensions of societies (culture, demography, socioeconomic structure, land tenure, etc.). There will probably be direct impacts that are easier to identify (social behaviour, sanitary strategies, markets, etc.). But what about cascading effects? Indirect effects are more difficult to pinpoint. Regarding Agriculture, the question I propose for discussion and scenario analysis (causal chain analysis?) is: “What could be the sequences of effects on agriculture in general and crop protection in particular?”.
Some potential auxiliary questions:
a) Could consumers change demands regarding food security and quality? If so, what could be the (new) pressures on crop protection?
b) Could the world change prioirities? Dependent on continent, region, type of agricultural farming systems?
c) Could there be a shift on research and development agendas of funding agencies?
d) Brainstorming of ideas and/or other auxiliary questions.
There cannot be a significant effect on crop protection as such. It was visible during the initial period when there was a complete lockdown and Fertiliser and pesticides shops remained closed. This caused a decrease in pesticides availability to the farmers. But after that during Unlock operations especially in India, the situation became the same. The only thing which has been impacted is that now the labour availability is less. This has increased the labour charges required for the farm operations.
