Farmers’ Perception and Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change and Variability in Some Selected Villages of Nigeria

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VIII, Issue V, May 2021 | ISSN 2321–2705

Farmers’ Perception and Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change and Variability in Some Selected Villages of Nigeria

Gwari, B.M ¹, Owolabi, E.S², Dantata, D ³, Abdulazeez, M1and Mubarak, U J ^4
1,²,⁴Environmental Studies Division, NIFFR PMB 6006 Niger State, Nigeria
3Federal University of Kashere, Gombe, Gombe State Nigeria

ABSTRACT
The study was carried out to evaluate how farmers in some selected villages in Kwaya Kusar Local Government Area, Southern Borno Nigeria, have perceived and adapted to climate change. Data was collected from 120 farmers through simple random sampling procedure. Purposive sampling was also used in the selection of key informants who have opinions and experience on the topic of study. Interviews as well as structured questionnaire were administered on respondents through Personal contact, with assistance of employed trained enumerators in their various communities. The analysis revealed that about 66.8% of the respondents were male, 59.1% were literate and 75% of the respondents had involved in farming for more than 5years.This implies that majority of the respondents had being in farming for many years. Majority of the farmers in Selected villages had a perception that climate was changing and the effects of these changes includes drying up of seedlings after germination, increase in soil erosion in some cases, loss of farmlands and crops due to flooding, water shortage according to their responses.. As a result of these farmers had responded by adapting. In this regard, age of the household, education, access to information on climate change through extension services, access to credit, changes in temperature and precipitation were found to have significant influence on the probability of farmers to perceive and/or adapt to climate change. With the level of perception to climate change being more than that of adaptation, the study suggests that more policy efforts should be geared towards helping farmers to adapt to climate change. The paper suggested policy framework geared toward the improvement of the livelihood of rural women and the farmers in general.

Key words: Farmers, climate change, perceptions, adaptation, Kwaya Kusar.

I.INTRODUCTION
It is a generally accepted among researchers that climate change poses serious challenges to development in Nigeria. This is due to the fact that the ninety percent of Nigerian population depend on rain-fed agriculture, which is heavily sensitive to climate change. Seventy percent of Nigerian is arid, semi-arid, or categorized as dry sub-humid; areas that are prone to desertification and drought [1]. In addition, the Nigeria Savanna area is fragile because of over cultivation, overgrazing, erosion, and deforestation. The country is expected to experience changing patterns of rainfall, increased temperatures leading to increased evaporation rates, and flooding; these will in turn lead to greater levels of land degradation and loss of surface and ground water potential.

Read More