Perceived Effect of Climate Variation on Food Crop Production in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The impacts of climate variation in Nigeria includes drought, erosion, desertification, soil nutrient loss, infestation of crops and livestock by pests and diseases, human health risks, biodiversity loss, changes in vegetation type, and consequently; depletion of household assets, increased rural-urban migration, and changing livelihood systems. The study objective is to determine the perception of food crop farmers in Oyo state to climate variation as it affects their production, because the relationship between climate variation and food security is direct and Oyo State has enormous potentials to make Nigeria food secure. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to sample out 170 farmers as respondents for the study. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to elicit information from respondents. Frequencies, percentages, and means were used to describe the data, while the hypotheses were tested with Chi-Square. Majority of the farmers are between ages 31 and 50 years, married, males, completed secondary school, non-commercial, and with an average of 11 to 20 years farming experience. The farmers are well aware of climate variation and have favourable perception of climate variation’s effect on their production. Also, they are actively adapting to climate variation with majority of them adopting the major adaptation strategies. However, there is a variation in their level of production. Significant relationship exists between food crops farmers’ awareness and perception of climate variation and their level of production, while there is no significant relationship between farmers’ adaptation strategies to climate variation and their production level. It is thus important for the government to organize enlightenment programmes for the farmers of the effect of climate variation on agricultural production, and effective and efficient ways to operate around it.