The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural household food security status in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality.

Abstract

The differentiated impact of the COVID-19 pandemic became more apparent in various ways, such as loss of employment, livelihood generation activities and the increased price of commodities. The socioeconomic effect of the COVID-19 national lockdown threatened the food security of countries where poverty, inequality, and food insecurity are already a challenge. The study, therefore, sought to establish how rural households were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic concerning their food security status. The convergent parallel mixed methods approach was adopted as the most relevant and appropriate approach towards answering the research question of this study. The heads of households (60) and a key informant (1) formed the sample for the study. The data were collected using both in-depth face-to-face interviews and observation. The thematic analysis method was used to analyse qualitative data, whereas the descriptive statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data. Based on the findings, the COVID-19 pandemic created food insecure households in the study area. Over 60 percent of households with meagre incomes have been adversely affected and made vulnerable to food insecurity, specifically low-income households. The pandemic eroded the trade-based entitlements which afforded people to make a living and the production-based entitlement which allowed people to produce for the consumption and to sell their produce for income generation. Own-labour entitlements were also interfered with because people were unable to use their own labour to produce or make a living as a result of the hard lockdown. The effect is still experienced, and some lost their family members who were the main wage earners (‘breadwinners’) and heads of households. The study recommends for the government and other relevant development stakeholders to develop urgent interventions to mitigate food insecurity crises attributed to pandemics and other factors.