Due to the covid-19 lockdown, people are usually staying home unless there is an emergency. Market places are shut down, kitchen markets and super-shops are open only for a few hours every day. As a result, people are compelled to buy less and consume less. During this extraordinary phase, two behavioral trends are noteworthy. Consumers try to be minimalistic in choosing their priority items and are less concerned with buying perishable agricultural products. Households are also wary of eating fresh vegetables and fruits due to the requirement of repeated visits to the market to acquire them and the necessity to thoroughly and sometimes painstakingly wash them to avoid health hazards. However, vegetables and local fruits that are grown to reach the urban consumers have very little shelf life and are becoming a distress point for farmers which would have normally brought them their livelihood for the period in question.

This rapid assessment, carried out in collaboration with Part II, covers the majority consumers’ perception of shifting dietary patterns during this pandemic and how this will have a negative impact on their immunity, paired with the immediate challenges vegetable producers are facing over their harvest-ready crops.