Climate change adaptation strategies among groundnut farmers in Suleja LGA of Niger State, Nigeria.

Abstract

This study examined the climate change adaptation strategies among groundnut farmers in Suleja Local Government Area of Niger State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economic characteristics of groundnut farmers; identify the climate change adaptation strategies adopted by the groundnut farmers, determine the factors influencing climate change adaptation strategies adopted by the groundnut farmers and identify the constraints faced by the groundnut farmers. Two-stage sampling procedure was used to select 120 groundnut farmers on which structured questionnaire was administered complemented with an interview schedule. Primary data collected were analysed with both descriptive (frequency counts, percentages and mean) and inferential (Tobit regression) statistics. The study revealed that the mean age of the groundnut farmers was 44 year, mean household size was 7 people and mean farming experience was 15 years. Meanwhile, 75.0% of the groundnut farmers were males, 88.3% were married and 96.7% of them had formal education. Mixed cropping (76.7%) and new cropping pattern (73.3%) were the most adopted climate change strategies by the groundnut farmers. Tobit regression result revealed that age (-2.01, p<0.05), household size (1.75, p<0.10), education (3.47, p<0.01), experience (1.90, p<0.10) and income (2.30, p<0.05) statistically influences the groundnut farmers adaptation to climate change. In terms of constraints faced by the groundnut farmers in production, majority (87.5%) of the groundnut farmers indicated lack of Government support, followed by inadequate extension services (74.2%) and low income (66.7%) ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd, respectively. In conclusion, the groundnut farmers adopted various adaption strategies to mitigate climate change in the course of production. It was therefore recommended that extension agency should provide adequate extension service to the groundnut farmers that will help them overcome the effect of climate change and boost their groundnut production.