Impact of Covid-19 on Agricultural Operations in India: An Overview

Abstract

As a result of Covid-19 distresses the economy and its impact on agriculture. This is complex and farmers have faced many problems, such as the unavailability of labour due to the lockdown and relocation of farmers to their locations and access to the market is difficult because transportation facilities were not available during the lockdown period and it is very difficult for farmers to repay loans in this period. Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) has been proposing agricultural reforms using technical innovation and attempting to safeguard farmers from losses. The goal of the research is to through a light on the structure of Indian agriculture and to give policy suggestions. It had been observed that, transportation stopped because of the lockdown  making the farm economy go nowhere. The produce was unable to be transported to market, thereby disturbing the supply chain in the middle of the harvest period. Also, the non-availability of migrant laborers, seizing the harvest and post-harvest operations. The pandemic has made to several contests in procurement operations as well as agricultural operations in future the following new techniques such as mechanical soil ploughing, automatic irrigation system, advanced weather monitoring, app-based system, online knowledge and market conditions, advanced technologies can be leveraged . In order to help the farmers to find more effective ways to defend their crops from weeds, the farmers can use automation and robotics. A Blue River Technology-developed robot named See & Spray appears to have been industrialized to use computer vision to precisely spray weeds on cotton plants.. There are more advanced technologies using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and  agricultural robotics to save water, sustain agro-ecology, rotate crops, and plant cover crops, alternating with manual labour that can keep farming activities going without hitch.