CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES BY SMALLHOLDER RICE FARMERS IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

This study assesses climate change vulnerability and adaptation strategies among smallholder rice farmers in North-central, Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 270 rice farmers; data collection was done using structured questionnaires. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results on socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents’ revealed the mean age of 37.46 years, majority (71.10%) were male, married (75.9%) with an average household size of 7 persons. Most (91.80%) of them had formal education and are full-time rice farmers (74.0%) with 13.37 years of experience, earning ₦142,185 annually from rice. Land acquisition is mostly (54.40%) through inheritance with 1.44 hectares on average. Many (75.60%) are cooperative members with 6.85 years of membership, and about half (50.40%) accessed credit. The results on farmers’ knowledge of climate change, specifically recognizing destruction of vegetation and trees (82.90%), daily temperature increases (77.40%), and drought occurrences (68.50%). The results on farmers’ perceive effects of climate change indicated that climate change poses risks to rice production (x̄= 2.60) and climate change presents more risks than benefits to rice production (x̄= 2.30) were considered as high perceived effects on rice production. The results on the use of climate change adaptation strategies revealed the use of herbicides (87.8%), adoption of improved rice varieties (83.7%), and utilization of weather forecasts (83.0%). The results on constraints revealed high costs of farm inputs (66.7%) and the high cost of improved rice varieties (64.1%). Policymakers and development initiatives should support and promote the diverse range of climate change adaptation strategies employed by smallholder rice farmers was offered as recommendation.