COMMODITY PROSPECTS OF ACEH PROVINCE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Food security in households can be measured by maintaining stability and security in the availability of staple food. Covid-19 has an impact on the agricultural sector and farmers so that it affects their income, and automatically changes the availability of food in their households. The purpose of this study was to find out how Covid-19 had an impact on the food availability of rice farmers' households, and what strategies were used to survive in conditions of uncertainty. This research uses a case study approach in Aceh Province. The results of this study show contradictory responses based on the status of the farmer (agriculture as the main or secondary livelihood), and the availability of access to other sources of income affects how or not Covid-19 affects their lives. This study shows that the cultural factors of farmers who live simply and farmers of food commodities are those who are more resilient than farmers of other commodities and the lower middle class in general. The strategy in question is to sell produce with a larger proportion due to declining selling prices, take food from the harvest and rice barns also receive assistance from the government.


INTRODUCTION
Food is a basic human need that is required to fulfill the requirements for a healthy, active and productive life. The condition of the fulfillment of stable food access and availability in terms of price, distribution, and quality from the national to household scale is called the achievement of food security conditions. According to Thomas Malthus in Theory of Population (1803), the number of people will increase exponentially, causing an increase in the need for food supplies arithmetically. This means that the need for food will increase along with the increase in population from year to year, without any effort to increase production it will limit people's access to food and cause food insecurity conditions. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization categorized Covid-19 as a pandemic, where its spread led the WHO to declare an emergency. The Covid-19 pandemic has suppressed global economic growth and has had social and economic impacts, especially in the agricultural sector. The existence of movement restrictions aimed at breaking the chain of the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which is vulnerable to human interaction, has proven to have an impact on the agricultural sector.
Ministry of Agriculture in Bulletin Publication Vol. 1 No. 2 of 2020 states that the global supply chain and availability of staple foods have been disrupted both in price and quantity in certain cities. This is driven by the emergence of panic buying and the enactment of Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB). As a producer, farming is affected due to access constraints causing a decrease in agricultural yields and demand for consumers, where the impact is a decrease in prices for crops that affect the total income of farmers.
Aceh Province is one of the provinces that is a grain producer in Sumatra with rice production according to the BPS in 2019 reaching 4,975.96 kg from 676 observations of rice fields in Aceh Province, while in 2020 rice yields were recorded at 4,871.88 kg from 644 total rice fields. observation of the location of rice fields in Aceh Province. According to population data, 54.94% of the people of Aceh Province work as farmers with the status of land owners and farm laborers. This makes agriculture still the main sector of economic movement in Aceh Province. Thus, this agricultural prospect commodity is carried out with the aim of finding out whether large-scale conditions such as the Covid-19 pandemic have an impact or influence on the availability of the same food in the household. in the midst of a pandemic.

METHOD
This service research was carried out through going directly to the field and conducting webinars with virtual zoom meetings which were attended by 300 participants from various regions consisting of lecturers, students and the public starting on October 10, 2021. Preparation of service activities included deliberations with the Governor of Aceh Province, Head of Bank Indonesia and local residents who work as farmers and farm laborers for the implementation of service activities. The preparation of this research was coordinated directly with a plan to find out whether the Covid-19 pandemic had a very influential impact on agricultural prospects and what strategies were carried out to maintain food availability during this pandemic in Aceh Province.

RESULTS
The problems facing society today have contradictory opinions as a whole. Where there are households who think that Covid-19 affects their farming activities, but there is one farmer household who thinks that Covid-19 does not affect the activities of other supporting factors that cause the conditions of all farmers to be not the same or the same fate. There are also those based on the type of farming work which is the main livelihood or not, commodities, yields and also daily needs where these factors affect farming activities, it turns out that it also has an impact on household responses to the condition of household food availability during the Covid-19 pandemic. 19.