IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/aaechp/978-3-031-21885-9_12.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Underlying Factors That Worsened the Vulnerability of Small-Holder Farmers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from North-Central, Nigeria

In: Uncertainty Shocks in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Olalekan Ibitoye

    (Management Development Institute of Singapore in Tashkent)

  • Adedoyin L. Ibitoye

    (Management Development Institute of Singapore in Tashkent)

  • Giuseppe T. Cirella

    (University of Gdansk)

Abstract

This chapter determines the underlying factors that worsened the vulnerability of small-holder farmers during the COVID-19 pandemic in North-Central, Nigeria. Proffering lasting solutions to the problems of low productivity, arising from the vulnerability to cope with shock events, is an important starting point to understanding how, why, and what occurred over the last 2 years. To better understand this, the socioeconomic characteristics of small-holder farmers were identified and interlinked with the factors that impaired their vulnerability during the pandemic. Primary data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire in combination with face-to-face interviews. A multi-stage sampling technique was used for data collection and a total of 360 farmers were sampled across three states in North-Central. The analytical techniques employed in the study include descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The findings of the research reveal that the majority of the respondents are male, fairly advanced in age, with relatively low levels of formal education. The major factors that significantly worsened the vulnerability of the farmers is educational level, farming experience, access to finance, adoption of improved technologies, and access to extension services. It is recommended that efforts should be made towards encouraging farmers to acquire some level of formal education, while adult education should be encouraged among those that are fairly old. Government should also increase access to finance and credit facilities, i.e., finance that goes directly to the actual small-holder farmer. More access to various improved farming technologies should provide farmers with better crop output and financial turnover. Moreover, increased access to quality extension services should be made available. In brief, the COVID-19 pandemic created financial uncertainties which affected economic growth and investments throughout different sectors of the world economy. It created agricultural setbacks that should not be overlooked but rather documented to mitigate future shocks with preparedness as a new standard.

Suggested Citation

  • Olalekan Ibitoye & Adedoyin L. Ibitoye & Giuseppe T. Cirella, 2023. "Underlying Factors That Worsened the Vulnerability of Small-Holder Farmers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from North-Central, Nigeria," Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, in: Giuseppe T. Cirella (ed.), Uncertainty Shocks in Africa, pages 203-212, Springer.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:aaechp:978-3-031-21885-9_12
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-21885-9_12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:aaechp:978-3-031-21885-9_12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.