Climate Change and Rice Production in Anambra State

Abstract

Rice is an important staple food crop to most households in Nigeria. This crop is affected by climate change and variability because of its sensitivity to changing precipitation and temperature conditions. Therefore, attention must be paid to the production of rice in the face of climate vagaries if the food security objectives of the nation must be achieved. This study therefore used available primary data from climate elements such as rainfall, temperature, relative humidity and wind speed to study the effect of climate change on Production in an agricultural community in Anambra State from 1985‒2014. Climate data for 30- year period was obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), and the data for 3 consecutive years obtained usingquestionnairefrom116Rice farmers. The Coefficients of variation, seasonality index and precipitation periodicity index were used to study variability in the climate data. The Mann-Kendall’s and Sen.’s tests were used to examine the presence of significant trends in the climate variables. The results show that among all the studied climatic factors, only rainfall had considerable variability and significant trend during the study period While rainfall had a significant negative trend, relative humidity had a significant positive trend (Z = +0.38; α > 0.1). Temperature and wind speed had no significant trend.