Crop Farmers’ Perception Of Flooding On Livelihood Activities In Ikom Agricultural Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined crop farmers’ perception of flooding on livelihood activities in Ikom Agricultural Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study sought to; ascertain causes of flood in the study area, identify the types of flood prevalent in the study area, ascertain the frequency of occurrence of flood in the study area, examine the perceived effect of flood on respondents’ livelihood activities and identify the constraints encountered by crop farmers toward controlling flood. A Multi-staged sampling technique was used to select respondents and a total number of 245 crop farmers were sampled using structured questionnaire. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The study revealed that causes of flood in the study area were: Heavy and prolonged rainfall with mean score of 3.17 and construction of settlement in flood plains with mean score of 2.81. The flood types prevalent in the study area were river flood and surface water flood as it ranked 1^st with mean score of 3.60 and 2^nd with mean score of 3.05. The result on the frequency of occurrence of flood showed that a larger proportion (57.6%) experience flooding every year Some of the perceived effect of flood on livelihood activities as indicated by the respondents were loss of crops, loss of income and hunger and starvation as they ranked 1^st with mean score (2.88), 2^nd with mean score (2.76) and 3^rd with mean score (2.57) respectively. Major constraints encountered by respondents were inadequate fund for controlling flood with mean score of 3.55 and inadequate information on the occurrence of flood with mean score of 3.51. It is recommended that, the government should provide adequate infrastructures such as good drainage systems, crop resistance varieties should be made available to farmers in flood prone areas and construction of houses in flood plain area should be discouraged.