Abstract

The study investigated the effect of COVID-19 on production activities of the young trained agricultural entrepreneurs in Kaduna State. Employing random sampling procedure, 300 respondents were sampled from the list of young, trained farmers and other youths that registered with the Kaduna State Agricultural Development Agency (KADA) training and capacity development intervention. Primary data were collected through the administration of structured questionnaires. Ninety percent of the respondents were male, while the mean age was 33.6 years. Majority (72.0%) of the respondents had a drastic reduction in demand for their goods and services, 62.0% had a restricted access to agricultural inputs supply, while 53.0% experienced direct effect on their production cost. To mitigate the effect of COVID-19, Some (56.0%) maintained contact with their customers using Facebook while some 55.0% used Instagram. The study concluded that respondents were hit by containment measures adopted to prevent the global spread of COVID-19. Kaduna state government through the Kaduna Agricultural Development Agency training and intervention programme should provide adequate support in form of credit, quality and subsidized inputs as well as useful agricultural businesses information to the trained agripreneurs.

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