IAMO FORUM 2022

IAMO FORUM 2022

Enhancing resilience in a post-pandemic era: challenges and opportunities for rural development

IAMO Forum 2022 | 22 – 24 June 2022 | Halle (Saale)

The Corona pandemic has affected rural areas in various ways all over the world. Its impacts stretched to agricultural trade, international mobility, livelihoods in rural areas and many other development aspects. Although agricultural production and food consumption remained on a rather stable path from a macroeconomic point of view, many effects at the level of rural households are still unknown and especially poorer countries may be faced with setbacks in their (rural) development efforts. How, for instance, will the drop in aggregate remittance flows spark off as a driver of poverty at the individual and community level? Are there long-lasting effects of personal illness on agricultural production or government’s containment measures at food supply chains to be expected? Which farms and rural areas are more resilient than others? Recent conceptualisations of resilience stress the adaptability of farms and households which will determine their resistance to future shocks. Often attention from policy and research dissipates quickly after acute events passed. However, when looking at the effects of this pandemic we should consider what are the long-term lessons from earlier crises such as the 2008 financial crisis, e.g., for remittance dependent households? Did at least some of them adapt and developed new livelihood strategies? How did agricultural trade flows adjust to shocks and do food import dependent countries with a more diversified trade structure enjoy a better food and nutrition security?

The IAMO Forum 2022 invites contributions shedding light on these or related questions which will help extending our knowledge of the complex nexus between crises, resilience and agricultural and rural development. Perspectives from different social sciences, including agricultural and development economics, political sciences, sociology, anthropology and history, are welcome. In particular, we encourage submissions of papers and proposals for organized sessions addressing the following issues with a regional focus on Europe, Central Asia and China:

• Effects of the pandemic and earlier crises on agricultural and rural development as well as food and nutrition security
• Evaluation of public containment and stimulating policies from an agricultural and rural development perspective
• Crises and institutional change
• Risk mitigation strategies of rural households
• Gender-differentiated effects of crises
• Crisis perceptions and responses from a behavioural economics point of view
• Resilient livelihood strategies: the role of remittances, non-farm diversification and new forms of cooperation
• Evaluation methods to assess the effects of the pandemic across different rural development indicators

IAMO Forum 2022 will take place in Halle (Saale). The hygiene concept will be in line with official requirements which implies that access might be restricted to vaccinated or recovered participants. Additionally, negative tests might be required. A final confirmation of the format and possible access requirements will be communicated together with the notification of acceptance. In case of travel restrictions to Germany, virtual presentation will be possible. The conference language will be English.

The conference will be organised by the Department Agricultural Policy on behalf of IAMO and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA.