EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19 ON FOOD SECURITY IN NIGERIA

The eruption of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) since December 2019 has brought untold challenges and hardship to the world population. The pandemic has greatly affected the actions and activities of mankind in Nigeria, food security inclusive. The COVID-19 pandemic came at a time in Nigeria when food systems were already under pressure. There was no prior preparation against the COVID-19 crisis. The measures put in place by the government to curtail the spread of the virus like lockdown, social distancing, movement and transport restrictions resulted to loss of jobs, decreased labour for agricultural food production, rise in food prices and decreased purchasing power of people for food accessibility. Food security is an essential part of sustainable development. This research work is aimed at evaluating and discussing the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on food security in Nigeria. The paper proposes control measures to be adopted to ensure food security in a COVID-19 afflicted Nigeria. For this study, exploratory research method was employed. For the evaluation and discussion, data from the World Bank (WB), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Program (WFP), the World Economic Forum (WEF), scientific and technical documents have been used...