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Vulnerability And Adaptation Of Crops Farmers To Climate Change In Agricultural Zone
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CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Information
Agriculture remains the main source of livelihood for rural communities in sub-Sahara Africa providing employment for more than 60 percent of the population; contributing about 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and accounted for up to 55 percent of the total value of Africas export (Sokona and Denton (2001). The World Bank (2000) observed that 70 percent of all Africans and nearly 90 percent of Africa’s poor work primarily in agriculture. Climate change affects agriculture and agriculture also affects climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) from different farming practices (Maraseni, Mustaq, and Maroulis2009; Edwards and Harris,2009).
The term “climate change†often refers to changes in climate which according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC (2007), are 90-95 percent likely to have been in part caused by human action. It describes changes in the variability of average state of the atmosphere over time scales, ranging from a decade to millions of years (Adejuwon, 2004). Swings in the global climate pattern have aroused attention at local, national and international levels (Onyeneke, 2010). Moreover, climate change is expected to increase with increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather conditions in Nigeria’s coastal and rainforest regions (Babatunde, Ayobami and Mark, 2011). The implications for the region are that it would generally experience wetter than average climate, more extreme weather conditions, particularly erosion, sea level rise and floods (Onyeneke, Iruo, and Ogboko,2012).
Given that agriculture and fishing remains the main sources of livelihood for most rural communities in Nigeria’s coastal and rainforest regions, climate change is expected to have greater negative impacts on poorer farm households as they have the lowest capacity to adapt to change in climate conditions and more vulnerable to vagaries that are climate induced (.Onyeneke, Iruo, and Ogboko 2012; Onyeneke and Madukwe, 2010). Adaptation measures are therefore important to help these communities to better face extreme weather conditions and associated climate variations (Adger, Brown, Conway, and Hulme, 2003). Estimates by Building Nigeria’s Response to Climate Change (BNRCC) (2011) suggest that, in the absence of adaptation, climate change could result to loss of 6% and 30% by the year 2050 (BNRCC, 2011). This loss is equivalent to N15 trillion (US$100 billion) and has the potential to significantly contribute to reductions in negative impacts from changes in climatic conditions as well as other changing socioeconomic conditions (Kandlinkar and Risbey, 2000).
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