Rice farmers’ socio-economic characteristics influencing adaptation to climate change in Taraba State, Nigeria

Abstract

Relationship between socio-economic characteristics of rice farmers on adaptation to climate change in Taraba state, Nigeria was determined in this study. Multistage random sampling technique was used to select 251 respondents. The study adopted the survey design with the use of questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multinomial logit regression analysis. Results show that 75.0% of the respondents were males; mean age of the respondents was 44 years, 74% of the respondents were married with a mean household size of 7 persons. The average years spent in school was 10 years, the mean farm size, years of farming experience and annual income of the respondents were 3 hectares, 16 years and N595667.04, respectively. Only 39.0% of the respondents were members of associations. The result of multinomial logistic regression revealed that farmers’ socio-economic characteristics such as age (-0.136), years spent in school (-0.176) and farm size (0.238) had significant effects on the number of climate change adaptation strategies by the farmers. Therefore, it is recommended that programs on how to adapt effectively to climate change variability should be embarked upon by relevant authorities; this will help farmers adapt to the effects of climate change and also affordable climate change technologies should be appropriated and developed by government for resource poor farmers since most of them are small scale and low income earners.