Evaluating the effect of covid-19 pandemic on poultry production in Iwo Local Government of Osun State.

Abstract

A striking appearance of new cases of viral pneumonia in Wuhan sometimes led to the detection of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV2). This created a new normal situation which necessitated this study. A well-structured questionnaire was used to gather data and later analysed using descriptive statistics in order to make inferences. A multistage sampling technique was used to select the poultry farmers while simple random technique was used to determine poultry farmers in Iwo Local Government. The result from the analysed data showed that all the poultry farmers in Iwo local government were affected in different ways. There were restrictions of movement, increase in price of feed and other inputs while sales volume of poultry products dropped drastically. This pandemic revealed that our current poultry production at various scales lack resilience or the capacity to adapt over the short term in the face of disturbance. In a bid to curtail the effect of pandemic in the nearest future government should play a decisive role in the production of poultry, starting from production of day old, supply of drugs and vaccines, promoting availability of feeds and feed ingredients, making funds or loans accessible to poultry farmers, encouraging farmers to join poultry association among other things. Government should establish new regulations for animal health care, trade, and movements of domestic and wild animals and provide adequate research funds for these activities to establish a strategic plan to ensure a continuous supply of animal protein in a bid to satisfy the consumers.