Perceived effects of climate change on food crops production in Oyo state

Abstract

The study assessed the perceived effects of climate change on food crops production in Oyo State. Multi stage sampling procedure was used in selecting 120 respondents for the study. Primary data was collected through interview schedule and it was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results reveal that majority (84.2%) of the respondents were male, married (92.5%) and the crop they mainly cultivate is maize (45.8%) and cassava(37.5%).Further results reveal that majority (70.0%) have knowledge of climate change and a sizable proportion (77.5%) of the respondents had unfavourable perception about the effects of climate change on food crops production which necessitated majority (60.8%) of the food crops framers to adopt different strategies to cushion the effects of climate change. Correlation analysis revealed that there existed a relationship between years of farming experience (r= -0.245; p=0.005); age, (r= -0.172; p=0.004) and perceived effects of climate change among the food crops farmers. It was recommended that adaptation to climate change should be mainstreamed into the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) and other food security and poverty alleviation programme, efforts should be intensified at educating and sensitizing farmers to be better acquainted with coping mechanisms and adaptation strategies that are currently been proffered by research effort. It was recommended that adaptation to climate change should be mainstreamed into the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) and other food security and poverty alleviation programmes.

Keywords: Perceived effects, climate change, food crop farmers.