EVALUATION OF THE ADAPTATION STRATEGIES TO CLIMATE VARIABILITY AMONG ARABLE CROP FARMERS
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- 1-5 Chapters
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- Factor Analysis
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- NGN 3000
Background of the Study
Agriculture is one of Nigeria's most significant economic sectors, accounting for over 42 percent of the country's GDP and more than 70 percent of non-oil exports. It meets more than 80% of the country's food requirements. Approximately 70% of Nigerians reside in rural areas, with 90% of them working in agriculture. This means that agriculture is a critical area that will benefit the majority of Nigerians (Okolo, 2004). Despite its significant contribution to the broader economy, this sector has faced several problems, the most serious of which are climate-related calamities such as drought and flooding (Deressa, 2008). The terrifying impacts of climatic variability on the overall environment, according to Udofia (2001), have reached a global scale. Despite the fact that its impacts and ecological and economic repercussions are widely understood, they do not appear to have received the serious consideration they need.
Climate is described as a statistical description of important quantities in terms of mean and variability over time scales ranging from months to hundreds or millions of years. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the classical era is 30 years (WMO, 1992). Surface factors like as temperature, precipitation, and wind are the most common. Climate differs from weather in that climate is what you expect, whereas weather is what you receive. The phrase "climate variability" refers to the inherent qualities of climate that reveal themselves in climatic variations throughout time. Climate variability is defined as "variations in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, and so on) of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales beyond that of individual weather events" by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001). This concept permits climate change to be seen as a low-frequency component of climate variability that can be handled using the same quantitative tools and research methodologies as other climate variability components (Mertz and Stone, 2003). Climate change can either increase or decrease a given area's agricultural competitive advantage.
Changes in soil water availability, greater climatic variability, climate extremes, and crop diseases might result in a drop in crop output and a severe food scarcity. Climate variability is expected to have a significant influence on agricultural output by the end of the twenty-first century, according to projections (Slater et al 2007). Humans can't anticipate what the following season will bring, but farmers, input suppliers, marketers, and the government all want to know since it's important for making decisions. Temperature, rainfall, and wind patterns have all been affected by climate change. As a result, rural people in countries like Nigeria, where agriculture is the primary occupation or economic activity, confront several obstacles in making decisions about their agricultural operations ( Barnwal and Kotani, 2010).
According to Nyong, Adesina, and Osman-Elasha (2007), climate variability adaptation methods are tactics that enable a person or a group to cope with or adjust to the effects of climate change. Despite the fact that the globe has been experiencing a series of adaptations in response to climatic variability, the current climate change is predicted to provide increased risk, novel combinations of risks, and possibly catastrophic consequences, according to Zeirvogel et al (2008). As a result, adaptation has been recognized as a policy option for reducing the negative impacts of climatic variability on agricultural output. Adaptation in agriculture aids farmers in achieving their food, income, and livelihood security goals in the face of changing climatic and socioeconomic conditions, such as climatic variability, extreme weather events such as droughts and floods, and volatile short-term changes in local and large-scale markets (Kandlinkar and Risbey, 2000).
Agricultural adaptation has been identified as one of the policy instruments for mitigating the devastation caused by climate change ( Kurukulasuriya and Mendelsohn, 2008). According to Mendelsohn and Dinar (1999), when climate adaptation is completely adopted, considerable reductions in detrimental consequences from climatic variability are conceivable (FAO, 2007). Adoption of effective environmental resource management methods such as planting early maturing crops, mulching, small scale irrigation, adoption of hardy types of crops, tree planting, and staking to minimize heat burns are some of the crop adaptation measures used by farmers (Nyong, et al, 2007). Agricultural adaptation in Nigeria is fraught with difficulties. According to Nzeh and Eboh (2011), the greatest barrier to efficient agricultural adaptation is a lack of awareness and information about climatic variability. Other impediments, according to Onyeneke and Madukwe (2010), include a lack of information on adequate adaption options, low market access, and a labor scarcity on farms.
According to Apata et al. (2010), money, land, and labor are significant elements in coping with adaptation, with the shortage of these assets, as well as the selection of appropriate adaptive strategies, being a serious obstacle to agricultural adaptation. This is in line with the findings of Deressa et al. (2008), who found that adaptation to climatic variability is expensive, and that the necessity for intense labor increases the cost. As a result, numerous adaptation techniques must be developed in order to cope with climatic unpredictability. Risk management, vulnerability reduction, agricultural productivity enhancement, environmental protection, and sustainable development are all part of such initiatives.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
According to recent studies, Africa is one of the most sensitive continents to climatic variability and change due to its limited adaptation capability. There has been some adaptation to current climatic fluctuation; however, this may not be adequate for future climate shifts (IPCC, 2007). The risk-averse farmer prefers precautionary strategies that buffer against climatic change, particularly as a result of increased variability and extreme over activities that are more profitable on average, as the uncertainty associated with climate variability is a disincentive to investment and adoption of agricultural technologies and market opportunities, prompting the risk-averse farmer to prefer precautionary strategies that buffer against climatic change, particularly as a result of increased variability and extreme over activities that are more profitable on average (Barrett et al, 2007). Many African farmers are expected to incur net revenue losses as a result of climate change, particularly as a result of increased unpredictability and severe occurrences (TerrAfrica, 2009).
Climate variability's negative implications, such as damage to arable lands, livelihoods, and biodiversity, will have an irreversible impact on food production in poor nations like Nigeria, which lack the capability to cope with and adapt to these difficulties (Sha, Fischer van Velthuizen, 2009). A research of this sort will be a timely intervention given the aforementioned problems. In Nigeria, several research have been conducted to examine the impacts of climatic variability on agriculture. However, few of these research have gone into detail on adaptive techniques. The issues of agricultural adaptation to climate change in Nigeria were examined by Enete and Amusa (2011), although the study was based on a survey of relevant literature, leaving a void for a more empirical approach to the study of this subject. In another paper, Enete and Amusa (2011) attempted to investigate the most cost-effective and long-term indigenous climate change adaptation practices in South East Nigeria, but studies covering a larger area, such as Nigerian agro-climatic zones and multiple arable crops at the same time appear to be lacking.
Umoh and Eketekpe (2010) sought to research climate change adaptation techniques among wetland farmers in Nigeria's Niger Delta area, although they only looked at Bayelsa out of the Niger Delta's nine states. The research was limited to a particular Local Government Area. Emaziye (2013) used perceptions of climate change among rural farming households in Nigeria's Niger Delta to determine the direction of change in climate change indicators, leaving a gap for empirical studies on adaptation, particularly in Delta State, where little or no work on adaptation strategies has been done. Previous research has revealed that the dimensions of these metrics' use have not been fully examined, notably in Delta State. This is significant because the farmers who are least equipped to adapt to climate change will be the ones who suffer the most.
As a result, the following research issues were addressed in this study:
What are agricultural growers' socioeconomic characteristics?
What are agricultural farmers' perspectives on climatic variability?
What adaptive measures have farmers used to counteract the consequences of climate change?
What socioeconomic and environmental elements have an impact on farmers' decision-making about adaption strategies?
What factors limit farmers' capacity to adjust to the consequences of climate change?
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The main objective of the study was to determine the Adaptation strategies to climate variability by arable crop farmers in Delta State. The specific objectives were to:
i) describe the socio-economic characteristics of arable crop farmers in the study area.
(ii) ascertain farmers’ perception about climate variability on crop production.
(iii) examine adaptation practices adopted by arable crop farmers in the study area.
(iv) ascertain the factors that influence farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies.
(v) determine the cost and return of adaptation strategies among arable farmers.
(vi) identify constraints to adoption of adaptation strategies by arable crop farmers .
1.4 Research Questions
What are the socio-economic characteristics of crop farmers?
What is the perception of crop farmer’s about climate variability?
What are the adaptation strategies adopted by arable crop farmers to mitigate the effects of climate variability?
What socioeconomic and environmental factors influence farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies?
What factors constrain farmers in adapting to the effects of climate variability?
1.5 Justification of the Study
The present inability of food crop production sector to meet the foods demand of Nigerians and the challenge posed by climate change and variability emphasized the need for the improvement of food crop farmers.
Failure to know the present food crop production efficiency (technical and profit) and the influence of climate change coping strategies on efficiency level of food crop production will inhibit designing and formulating appropriate policies to meet food crop production demands of the country. Developing economies can benefit much from inefficiency studies especially a type like this that incorporates farmers’ adaptation strategies to climate change to explain efficiencies.
The results of this study are expected to give direction for policy makers in designing appropriate public policies to increase agricultural productivity and mitigating effects of climate change on food crop production in Nigeria especially in the Delta state zone. It will provide a useful guide to international and local donor agencies interested in climate change mitigation and adaptation in their provision of grants and funds for environmental and resource management studies. The results of this study will also help agricultural planners in the Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs) and Ministries of Agriculture, Science and Technology; and Environment in the southwestern region and Nigeria as a whole and those states in the zone with Agro-climatological and Ecological zone study Units in their planning activities and providing useful weather data that will guide in planning public (or planned) adaptations to complement the farm-level (or autonomous) adaptation strategies.
Researchers are going to have a good resource base to look at climate change for further work. Farmers are also going to benefit by knowing those adaptation strategies to climate change that are more productive and efficiency-enhancing.
1.6 Limitations of the Study
The major limitation was on data collection. The enumerators elicited information from the respondents using interview schedule as against the supposed structured questionnaire. The respondents were interviewed all through because of the importance of the information the questionnaire to elicit. It was not self-administered as it is supposed of questionnaire but rather enumerator and researcher-administered (Eboh, 1998). This made the collection of data to take more time than necessary but the data were free of error due to omission of relevant information needed for the study.
Another limitation was the issue of finance for the data collection. This was overcome as the researcher sought for money to address this issue in order to still meet up with the set time for the data collection.
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