Perception and Adaptation to Climate Change among Farmers in Selected Communities of Ekiti State, Nigeria

Year 2014, Volume: 31 Issue: 3, 100 - 113, 08.12.2014

Adewale Fatuase Igbekele Ajibefun

Abstract

This study discusses the findings of the research that was carried out in Ikogosi Warm Spring Communities of Ekiti State among predominantly smallholder arable crop farmers on their knowledge of climate change and adaptation strategies. The study discovered that almost all the farmers interviewed perceived changes in climate. The result of factors influencing farmers’ perception decisions using ordered logit regression analysis showed that gender, age and level of education were statistically significant in making decisions on the level of perception made by the farmers. Finally, multinomial logit regression model was employed to analyse the factors that are influencing farmers’ choice of adaptation on climate change and variability. The results indicate that gender, age, farming experience, land tenure, farm size, access to extension services, access to loan, engage in non-farming activities, temperature and rainfall were the main factors influencing farmers’ choice of adaptation to mitigate effect of climate change in the study area. It is therefore, concluded that government policies and investment strategies must focus on most of the factors highlighted above in order to rescue the poor crop farming households from the danger of climate change.

Keywords

Farmers, perception, adaptation, climate change, multinomial logit

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