HOW COVID-19 PANDEMIC OBSTRUCTED MAIZE PRODUCTION ACTIVITIES IN NIGER STATE OF NIGERIA

Abstract

The fight against Covid-19 remains, as it continued to mutate into highly transmittable omicron variants. This study addresses the challenges faced by maize farmers in Niger state of Nigeria during and immediately after the early 2020 lockdown to offer recommendations on how to reduce the negative impact of the new variants containment policies. Primary data were collected using a structured questionnaire. A simple random sampling technique was used in selecting household after which 248 maize farmers was extracted from the data. It was observed that the farmers were enlightened on the issues of Covid-19 and there is no significant difference between the elderly and the young farmers on adherence to the safety rules of Covid-19. The major obstruction to the production chain during the lockdown was the marketing of the maize crop, followed by the difficulties in accessing inputs for next production season. Despite the challenges, over half of the respondents chose to increase their farm production scale for the next season to take advantage of the increasing prices. The findings in this study have policy implication on maize farmers and other stakeholders in the value chain.