Climate variability/change and attitude to adaptation technologies: a pilot study among selected rural farmers’ communities in Nigeria

Abstract

Understanding climate variability and change is essential for designing adaptation policies and strategies to deal with the impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector. This Paper aims at assessing climate variability/change, the perception of rural farmers on climate change and preferred adaptation strategies among the farmers in some selected farming communities in Nigeria. The study thus used both meteorology data and social survey, to examine variability/change in climate and factors determining the adaptation techniques adopts by rural farmers. The results show a relatively uniform temperatures and some seasonal variations in recent years (diurnal range of temperature is about 10°C) but the rainfall shows much more seasonal variations. The rainfall has relatively undeviating trend from 1981 to 1996 but the trend appears to be upwards from the year 1997 to 2010. About 72.8% participants responded in the affirmative that climate is changing but there appears to be a significant relationship between the length of farming experiences and farmers' perceptions of climate change adaptation techniques. Water-related (about 53%) and nutrient related (about 52%) technologies appear to have a high preference among the farmers. The major driver that determines farmers' preference for climate change adaptation techniques is their incomes and experiences.

Comparing Smallholder Farmers’ Perception of Climate Change with Meteorological Data: Experience from Seven Agroecological Zones of Tanzania

“…Climate projections show that most parts of Africa, and particularly East Africa, are likely to experience significant climatic changes as extreme drying and warming will occur in most subtropical regions, with slight increments in precipitation in the tropics (Paavola 2008;Ericksen et al 2011;Rowhani et al 2011;IPCC 2012IPCC , 2014Mwongera et al 2014). To secure a reliable and sustainable food source for farmers in developing countries, more tangible and accessible climate information is required in order to improve their resilience through the impacts of climate change (CC; Ahmed et al 2011;Ayanlade et al 2017).…”

“…Various climatic studies show that sub-Saharan Africa is among the worst regions impacted by CC and thus, a better understanding of how farmers view climate issues is a tangible step toward improving resilience (Nyong et al 2007;Eludoyin et al 2017;Ayanlade et al 2018). This understanding is more significant in arid, semiarid, and tropical lands, especially in East Africa (Nyong et al 2007;Ifejika Speranza et al 2010;Rao et al 2011;Muller and Shackleton 2014).…”

Climate change adaptation among poultry farmers: evidence from Nigeria

“…Though these climate events pose increasing challenges for crop and animal production, most climate change impact studies focus on staple food crops (Seo and Mendelsohn 2008;Ayanlade et al 2017;Hitayezu et al 2017;Mulenga et al 2017;Sesmero et al 2017;Ayanlade et al 2018). There are very limited studies that have examined the effects of climate change on African livestock, and those few tend to focus on large livestock such as beef cattle (Silvestri et al 2012;Zampaligré et al 2014;Debela et al 2015).…”

“…To sustain the growth of this important economic sector in the face of climate change, it is important to understand how poultry farmers are responding to climate events and their investment in adaptation strategies. The decision to adopt a strategy depends on a farmer's knowledge of and confidence in the benefits of a strategy, the scale of his operation, the likely risk associated with not adapting and his financial ability to bear the cost associated with the strategy (Ayanlade et al 2018;Massetti and Mendelsohn 2018;Seo and Mendelsohn 2008). Farmers' perception about climate change and their experiences of loss due to climate factors are also likely to affect their adoption of adaptation strategies (Woods et al 2017;Zamasiya et al 2017).…”

A Review on the Causes, Effects and Mitigation of Climate Changes on the Environmental Aspects

“…Regional variations of above 20 to 30 per cent are expected in crop yield in some areas and equal size losses in other regions. Change is normally expected in most areas, and there is a need to adopt practicable mitigation measures to reduce the effect to the barest minimum [12].…”