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Strengthening farm and non-farm livelihoods can pave the way for food and nutritional security.

As the world grapples with the devastating consequences of the spread of the novel coronavirus, nations are faced with multiple questions that go well beyond the direct impact of contracting the disease. We are dealing with a massive loss of livelihoods, unemployment, hunger, and a decline in the overall health status of citizens including the sharp rise in mental health ailments. In India, agricultural distress is stark and ever-increasing.

At around 4 am, Shamli Devi leaves her home with a water bottle, torch and a clean cloth, walking nearly 5 km to the nearest forest in eastern Madhya Pradesh’s Mandla district. For the next five or six hours, Shamli toils away in the heat, plucking leaves from

Steep mountains alternate with deep valleys and lush green forests in West Singbhum, the iron ore mining hub in Jharkhand. Home mostly to a tribal population, the district has dismal health and social indicators, and poverty is rampant. But this may be is gradually changing. Now, fruit laden trees are visible in the landscape over large parts of West Singhbhum.

The COVID-19 pandemic is now a worldwide social, economic, and political crisis, but not everyone is affected in the same way, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, Arnab Chakraborty, and Sourav Bag write.

As India enters into the 4th phase of lockdown, we are caught between the dilemma of savings lives or protecting livelihoods by keeping the economy open and running. The most marginalised, daily wage earners, unorganised labour class and those at the fringes of our society have been disproportionately affected.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has infected more than 5.1 million people out of which more than 330 thousand people died. Most of the countries are either under nation-wide or localised lockdown with more than half of the global population confined within their homes. Rest of the countries are also following many restrictive measures to avoid spreading of the virus.

Smallholder farmers utilize space efficiently, growing creepers on machaan and shade-loving plants underneath. This mixed cropping with different growth period eliminates risk and improves farm income

More than 200 farmers in three blocks of the Jharkhand district went the green way to reduce dependance on monsoon rains

With the lockdown extended, food supplies and livelihoods are emerging as key areas of concern in rural districts. Local administration and nonprofits are working together to help resolve some of these issues.