IMPACT OF CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC ON AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES IN A SOUTH EASTERN NIGERIAN STATE

Education

study was on impact of covid-19 pandemic on agricultural activities in a South-Eastern Nigerian state. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study and was conducted in Enugu State. The population for the study was 4234 respondents consisting of 4102 farmers and 132 lecturers in agricultural related fields in tertiary institutions in Enugu State. The sample for the study was 542 respondents consisting of 410 farmers and 132 lecturers (Entire population of lecturers was used because it was small and manageable). A 20 item questionnaire was developed from literature and used to obtain data for the study. The questionnaire was validated by three experts in the Department of Agricultural education while the reliability yielded 0.79 coefficient using Cronbach Alpha. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while t-test statistics was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of probability. The findings revealed 10 impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on crop production activities and 10 impacts of COVID-19 pandemic animal production activities in the area. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that; Enugu State Government should invest in digital agricultural technologies and related tools which can possibly represent viable alternatives to labour constraints as well as to minimize human contact during the pandemic of COVID-19; and Governments should innovate and collaborate to manage the international trade concerning agricultural inputs, in terms of fertilizers, pesticides, grains, animal products and other agri-food exports and imports to dampen the risks on the food system.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.