Save farmers, save Nigeria

COVID-19 will deplete rural communities of their food producers, hitting those who are least equipped to deal with its consequences. In no time, the pandemic will become a determining factor of food and nutrition security in Nigeria and Africa, not because it attacks crops or livestock, but because it will reduce the human productivity.

In order to help mitigate this looming disaster, there should be aggressive information, education and communication campaigns in the rural communities.

However, ensuring that farmers have the capability and motivation to change and take action with respect to standard protocols of keeping social distance, avoiding crowded places, using masks, using sanitisers, avoiding handshakes, washing of hands regularly and staying at home remain a big challenge.

The Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, University of Abuja, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has developed appropriate farmers’ response mechanism for rural behavioural change. It is an innovative approach to sensitise rural people to respond to beneficial information, especially in a crisis situation.

Therefore, to save the food producers and save Nigeria, we propose two interventions: use of entertainment education in the forms of songs, playlets or folktales to create awareness. The premise for this strategy is that rural people will benefit because they will learn a new idea about COVID-19 prevention, behave differently because the message is embedded in an entertainment context.

The second intervention is Participative Advocacy for Community Mobilisers (PACM). The main goal here is to facilitate local recruitment of community mobilisers in the campaign against COVID-19. This will involve the mobilisation of leaders of community-based organisations, primary and secondary school teachers, religious leaders, agricultural extension officers and leaders of self-help groups. Extension agents, religious leaders, village heads and teachers influence behaviours and practices and they serve as a major and sometimes the only reliable sources of information for some people in the rural areas. They are capable and have the opportunity to communicate about lifethreatening issues like COVID-19. This participatory approach has a possibility of being more inclusive of marginalised voices. The information obtained, processed and shared would be classified as follows: what is happening now? - COVID-19. What are the causes and symptoms? - Itching in the throat, dry throat and dry cough. What will happen if nothing is done? - Large scale death and sorrow, and, What to do in order to change the status quo. Keeping social distance; avoiding crowded places; using mask when going out to public places; using sanitisers; avoiding handshakes; washing of hands regularly; staying at home; and reporting symptoms to nearest health centres or 08009700010.

To save the food producers and save Nigeria, lets stand together.

Assoc. Prof. E.E. Idu is the Head of Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, University of Abuja - ejoga@ uniabuja.edu.ng