ABSTRACT:

The study analyzed the effect of Covid-19 Pandemic on food security status of rural crop farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: describe the socio economic characteristics of rural crop farmers in the study area, identify rural crop farmers’ covid-19 information sources and determine the food security status of rural crop farmers during Covid-19 in the study area. Data were generated, with the aid of structured questionnaire, from a survey conducted on a sample of 270 rural crop farmers obtained from a multistage sampling technique. Descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency, percentages were used for data analysis. From the findings, the study area was dominated by farmers with a mean age of 51 years, mean monthly income (₦ 32,426), majority completed secondary education (34.4%) and married (77.0%) food crop farmers who were quite experience with average of 23 years of experience and mean household size of 6 persons. The results revealed that the major source of information among rural crop farmers were through ministries of Agriculture (62.9%), federal ministry of health (52.2%), television (45.1%) and through social organization (44.8%). The assessment of the food security status of rural crop farming households revealed that majority response of food crop farmers were negative showing that farmers were food insecure. The study concludes that there is need for increased productivity among rural crop farmers in the study area if productivity policies and strategies implemented by government in other to ease Covid-19 challenges faced by farmers. The study recommended that rural crop farmers should be encouraged by the government through enacting favorable policies which will encourage crop farmers resilience in agriculture via awareness creation geared toward profit maximization, income generating activities that can make them to be food secured in the study area.