AFTERMATH OF COVID-19 ON PILLARS OF FOOD SECURITY: THE RURAL HOUSEHOLDS’ PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Rural areas of Nigeria are mainly agrarian and majority of their dwellers practice subsistence farming characterised with small farm size and low productivity. The advent of COVID-19 pandemic with its inherent challenges on agriculture further posed a serious threat on the survival of the resource-poor rural households. This study was a post-COVID assessment of how rural households perceived the effects of the pandemic on four major pillars of food security. Data was collected from 156 randomly selected rural households using validated interview schedule. Data was analysed using appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics. Results revealed that although, majority (57.7%) had adequate knowledge about COVID-19 pandemic, more than half (53.2%) had indifferent perception towards it. Majority (89.1%) perceived the effects of COVID-19 pandemic to be serious on all the pillars of food security despite adopting
multiple coping strategies to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. The government rarely gave palliatives (mean=0.15) with the majority (85.6%) claiming they had never received any. A negative but significant relationship exists between household size and the perceived effects of the pandemic (r=-0.17; P≤ 0.05). Since the rural households perceived severe effects of the pandemic on food availability, access, utilisation and stability, deliberate development of responsive packages by relevant local, state and federal government agencies to cushioning the effects is germane to averting severe food shortage and hunger in the rural areas.