Abstract

  COVID 19 pandemic and lockdown have dealt a blow at various spheres of human life. The impact transcends the health to agriculture and many other sectors. A multidisciplinary team of experts in agriculture including crop, livestock, economics and extension drew out a questionnaire with areas of impact, mitigation and constraints imposed by COVID-19 and accompanied lockdown. The survey was administered online to farmers in South-west, Nigeria. A total of 1319 farmers responded 340 from Oyo, 289 from Osun, 231 from Ekiti, 212 from Ogun, 185 from Ondo and only 62 from Lagos State respectively. Obtained data for this study were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequency count, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The study revealed that COVID 19 pandemic and lockdown had a devastating impact on Agriculture activities and the value chain. Most of the respondents were at their active and productive age (44 years). The respondents perceived that producer/farmers and marketers (62.93-65.81%) were profoundly affected while agro-processors and input/agrochemical merchants (52%) were moderately affected. Majority of the respondents agreed that the pandemic and lockdown changed agriculture with the threat to life and livelihoods (94.69%), with looming food/feed crises (92.04), increased cost of production (92.95%), economic loss (\bar{x}=4.37), reduced quality food availability (\bar{x}=4.17), increased income insecurity (\bar{x}=4.18) and social vices (\bar{x}=4.20) as a result of logistical (transportation/ movement) restrictions, border closures and interruption of loan accessibility (\bar{x}=4.48). Our study, therefore, suggests that there is a need for a collaborative effort from the government and the stakeholders to strengthen the agricultural sector through finance to increase production and enhance value chain. This will go a long way in achieving self-sufficiency in food and industrial raw materials post-COVID-19 period.

Keywords: COVID-19; Pandemic; Agriculture; Farmers; Self-sufficiency

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Citation

Citation: Ayodeji F Ajayi., et al. “COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown: Effects on Agricultural Activities and Value Chains in the Six States of South-western Nigeria”. Acta Scientific Agriculture 5.1 (2021): 22-34.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Ayodeji F Ajayi., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.