Impact of Climate Change on Soybean Production in Lapai Local Government Area of Niger State

Abstract

The study employed a Ricardian Model to measure the impact of climate change on soybean production in Lapai local government area of Niger state. The study utilized time series data on climatic variables for the period 1980-2012 and primary data on socioeconomic background, production cost, yield and prices of output from 80 randomly selected farmers. Results showed that rainfall and humidity statistically affected the net revenue of soybeans at 10% and 5% levels of significance. Rainfall had a negative coefficient of -68399.5 implying that as rainfall increases, output of soybeans decreases and subsequently the net revenue reduces. The interaction variable between rainfall and temperature and humidity and temperature were significant at 1% and 5% respectively. This suggests that the interaction effects of rainfall and temperature and humidity and temperature had significant effect on the net revenue of the soybean farmers in the study area. Findings also revealed that the critical value for marginal impacts is the annual temperature implying that 1mm increase in rainfall would reduce net revenue of soybean by N68,369.82/ha. From these findings, it is recommended that farmers should concentrate on mitigation effects against increased rainfall by planting towards the ends of the rains or before the rains fully establishes.