Agricultural extensification refers to an expansive, low-input production strategy that is land rather than labour limited. Here, we present a robust method, using the archaeological proxies of cereal grain nitrogen isotope values and settlement size, to investigate the relationship between agricultural intensity and population size at Neolithic to Bronze/Iron Age settlement sites in northern Mesopotamia, the Aegean and south-west Germany. We conclude that urban form-in particular, of occupation-as well as scale shaped the agroecological trajectories of early cities. Whereas high-density urbanism in northern Mesopotamia and the Aegean entailed radical agricultural extensification, lower density urbanism in south-west Germany afforded more intensive management of arable land. We relate these differing agricultural trajectories to long-term urban growth/collapse cycles in northern Mesopotamia and the Aegean, on the one hand, and to the volatility of early Iron Age elite power structures and urban centralization in south-west Germany, on the other.

As farmworkers were reframed as "essential" workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, US growers demanded unfettered access to foreign farm labor. After initially announcing a freeze on all immigration processing, the Trump administration bowed to farmers' demands, granting a single exception for agricultural guestworkers under the H-2A visa program. Through a focus on H-2A farmworkers in Georgia, this paper highlights how the pandemic exacerbated farm labor conditions in the US South. The author interrogates these conditions through the lens of racial capitalism, exposing the legacies of plantation political economies and a longstanding agricultural labor system premised on devaluing racialized labor. These histories are obscured by the myth of agricultural exceptionalism-the idea that agriculture is too different and important to be subject to the same rules and regulations as other industries. Agricultural exceptionalism naturalizes the racial capitalist system and informs state responses that privilege agricultural production the exploitation of farmworkers, remaking "essential" farmworkers as sacrificial labor.

In the Andes, the diversification of economic activities among the peasant population is common practice. However, it is not a uniform strategy: as new employment and economic possibilities have emerged, the disparity of pluriactive strategies has multiplied. Based on a particular case study (Amantaní Island, Lake Titicaca), where community-based tourism has developed strongly, we will compare the resilience of these strategies. The COVID-19 pandemic, which paralysed economic activities, highlighted that the least vulnerable pluriactive strategies were those that included subsistence agriculture. In fact, this is something that the peasant population itself perceives: although the role of this type of agriculture in the family economy is decreasing, most households still invest time and capital to increase their family's agricultural resources.

In the state of Punjab, the heart of the green revolution in India, a large fraction of agricultural labour is expended by migrant workers. The unplanned lockdown imposed by the Indian government affected paddy transplantation, a labour-intensive activity in Punjab primarily due to interstate restrictions on movement. Drawing on a primary survey in a village from the region of Punjab, the paper examines the changes in agrarian relations in rural Punjab due to the Covid-19 pandemic by critically analysing the dynamics of capital labour relations. The restriction on labour movement and unilateral imposition of transplantation wage rates by a few in Punjab (dominated by capitalist landlords and rich peasants) has intensified class conflict in the state. The Punjab government's policies, which are driven by the capitalist landlords and rich peasants, have played a significant role in the increased exploitation of workers. The paper concludes with a brief evaluation of the changes induced by Covid-19 in the agrarian political economy of Punjab.

The experiences of COVID-19 differ at both micro and macro levels. This emphasizes the need for differentiated responses that account for the varying vulnerabilities of diverse groups regarding the pandemic. In Ghana, much of the attention on COVID-19 has been on urban centres, particularly the country's two largest metropolises in southern Ghana. This has created a gap between national level policy and the experiences of COVID-19 among rural dwellers in Ghana. This is despite evidence that the world's poorest populations will bear the brunt of COVID-19 effects, and that globally, four out of five people living below the poverty line reside in rural areas. Using the Upper West Region as a case study, we discuss the differentiated vulnerabilities that agrarian communities in Ghana face regarding the pandemic. We situate our discussions within the theories of vulnerability and feminist political economy to highlight how interlocking vulnerabilities regarding historical, environmental, geopolitical, socio-economic, health, and gendered inequalities affect the disposition of agrarian communities to cope with and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. We call for more nuanced COVID-19 responses that account for the needs and experiences of agrarian communities in Ghana.

Like many Latin American countries, Ecuador responded to COVID-19 by restricting trade and travel, a decision that disrupted the prevailing model of regional trade integration. Among some analysts, observations have been made that the lockdown represents a new opportunity to revitalize rural livelihoods and smallholder agriculture. This paper evaluates these claims by exploring the impact of COVID-19 on household food security and smallholder food production in Chimborazo, a highland province that is known for extremely high rates of poverty and the highest concentration of Kichwa-speaking Indigenous people in Ecuador. Drawing upon original empirical research, it makes the case that the prospects for revitalizing smallholder production remain structurally constrained by a legacy of land inequality and failed agrarian reform. According to our findings, the only sectors that thrived during the lockdown were ones that served local markets. For those requiring significant shipping and storage, merchants and traders were able to drive down farmgate prices, squeezing local producers. At the same time, new government legislation made it easier for employers to terminate wage labourers, undermining a vital source of income and employment for low-income households. Far from revitalizing smallholder agriculture, the pandemic appears to have further entrenched an economic model of supporting agribusiness at the expense of family farms and migrant labour.

The issues posed by the unfolding impacts of COVID-19 are very uneven in the case of Argentina, a major global commodity exporter. As domestic food prices have continued to rise, worsening the living conditions of millions, and state policies seek to guarantee the population's access to food, the hegemonic agribusiness sector is fostering new alliances to strengthen its integration into global agri-food markets. A full understanding of agribusiness' strategies needs to address the changes brought about by the pandemic on peasant-like farmers and rural workers, the alternatives they have developed (mainly agroecology) in their struggle against the dominant food regime in recent years, and explore the extent to which local expressions of this antagonism are being reshaped. In doing so, we also pay attention to the role of the state.

Covid-19 generated a crisis in capitalism, but not of capitalism. Capitalism reproduces itself in crisis and in ways that have significant but uneven impacts on the conditions and struggles of agrarian classes of labour. This article explores preliminary studies of how Covid-19 has affected agrarian social formations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the farmers, petty commodity producers, labourers and agribusinesses who populate them. It considers some of the implications for wage-labour, agriculture, accumulation and social reproduction including care work. And it briefly considers Covid-19's political impacts-in terms of the role of the state and possibilities for challenging capitalism, its violence and its ecological crisis.