Effect of covid-19 on fish value chains: descriptive evidence from India

There are several ongoing efforts across the CGIAR to assess the impacts of covid-19 on food value chains. WorldFish is focusing on impacts on aquatic foods systems. It is presently implementing a survey of covid-19 impacts in 6 countries, including India to track change in prices and availability of fish and fish production inputs across value chains through bi-weekly ten-minute interviews. Preliminary results from the survey have shown that employment fell, ability to access transport for inputs and fish reduced, and consumers’ effective demand for fish decreased during February to May 2020. However, it is increasingly recognized that the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic and the response measures on food value chains are complex, heterogeneous and dynamic. This necessitates the need for regular assessments of the impacts (Amjath-Babu et al., 2020). Furthermore, studies on impacts of covid-19 are often based on small samples raising questions about their external validity. The current proposed study aims at assessing the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on fish value chains in India. The specific objectives are threefold: 1) to assess the impacts of covid-19 on access by fish value chain actors to inputs including seed, feed, labour, lime, water quality improvement chemicals, and other raw materials required for production, processing, packaging, or marketing of fish; 2) to assess the impact of covid-19 on fish production and sales; 3) to assess the impacts of covid-19 on access to markets by value chain actors including impacts on sales, prices, and competition. The study leverages ongoing efforts by expanding the scope and scale of the WorldFish survey by increasing sample coverage and adding more detailed questions including impacts on competition.