Assessment Of Climate Change Mitigation Practices Among Arable Crop Farmers

This study assessed the climate change mitigating practices among arable crop farmers in Edo central zone of Edo state. One hundred arable crop farmers were selected through a multi-stage process using simple random sampling technique. Data collection was carried out with well structured questionnaire and was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools. Findings show that majority( 62.7%) of the respondents were males about 42% fell within the age bracket of 41-50 years of age, 84% were married, 62% had primary education and 41.3% had farm size of 2.1-4.0ha.The study also showed that majority of the farmers were aware of the causes and manifestations of climate change. All the respondents used manuring regularly as an adaptive measure while all of them perceived afforestation, manuring, timely harvesting and mixed cropping as most effective measures of adaptation.

The result also showed that there was no significant relationship between respondents socio-economic characteristics and awareness of climate change. There was significant relationship between the respondents’ annual income (r=-0.194, P=0.017) and the perceived effect of climate change on arable crops. There was significant relationship between respondents’ farm size (r=-0.253, P=0.002) and annual income (r=-0.179, P=0.029) and the perceived effectiveness of climate change mitigation and adaptation measures . The major constraints to the use of adaptive measures were lack of finance, lack of access to improved crop varieties, inability to access available information, low level of technology and difficulty in getting accurate result. It was recommended that the state government should make funds through rural agricultural credit scheme to arable farmers in Edo central zone and ensure the funds are well disbursed to enhance their access to production inputs to mitigate climate change effects.