CLIMATE CHANGE AND PRODUCTIVITY OF CROP FARMERS IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

This descriptive survey investigated climate change and productivity of crop farmers in Rivers State, Nigeria. The population of the study was a total of 1,139 registered crop farmers in Rivers State from the two agricultural designated crop zones. The sample consisted of 470 crop farmers (zone 1=239; zone 3=231) computed using the Taro Yamane (1967) sample formula. Multistage sampling was used for sample selection, firstly, purposive sampling technique was used to select the two designated agricultural crop zones and 10 farming LGAs; proportionate sample size computation was used to get the samples for the LGAs, while random sampling was used to select the total respondents. A 23-item structured questionnaire was developed and validated by three experts. The questionnaire was made up of sections A and B. Descriptive statistics was used to answer the research questions, while z-test was used to test the hypotheses. Results revealed that impact of climate change in the area included decline in the yield of crops, poor harvests, shortage of farm produce. Others are regular flood disasters, rising temperature and heat stress, high costs of farm inputs; change of cropping season and loss of arable lands. Results also indicated that challenges of crop farmers include inadequate information on climate change; lack of extension services; lack of government support on farm inputs and lack of financial support. There were no significant differences between the mean responses of the crop farmers in the two agricultural zones on the impact of climate change on productivity in Rivers State (p = 0.26 > α = 0.05) and the challenges encountered by farmers due the impact of climate change (p = 0.46 > α = 0.05). It was therefore recommended that there should be increased level of awareness creation and enlightenment by the state and local governments; private organizations and NGOs to crop farmers on the impact of climate change on productivity. More so, that crop farmers in Rivers State should be given supports in the provision of finance and farm input to enable them continue and meet up with food production demands in the state despite the climate change impact.