Smallholder Maize Farmers’ Perception of Weather Variability and its Influence on Sustainable Adaptation Strategies in Anambra state, Nigeria

Abstract

The effect of weather variability was severe on poor households lacking mitigation capability. Adaptation was easy and cheaper, but documentation about its adoption was low, thus this study examined maize farmers’ perception and use of sustainable adaptation practices. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used. In all, 120 farmers were randomly selected. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on farmers’: perceived climatic factors; sustainable adaptation practices; the effect of climate change and farmers’ adoption constraints. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics multinomial logit. The result showed perceived high temperature (74.0%) high relative humidity (58%), high intensity of sunlight (64.2%) and low wind velocity (57.5%). Strategies adopted by farmers in mitigating climate change showed that 95.0% of the farmers mitigated against weather variability. The majority mitigated climate variability with the adoption of organic manure (60.2%), cover cropping (86.0%), planting resistant varieties (87.0%) and mixed cropping (83.5%). The influence of weather variability on farmers’ adaptation strategies results showed that farmers are proactive in adapting against rainfall (P<0.01), wind (P<0.01) and temperature (P<0.01), and not sunlight (P<0.1). The marginal effects showed that rainfall, wind, and temperature have the likelihood of increasing the adaptive measures taken by the farmers. Constraints to the adoption of mitigating strategies included inadequate training standard deviation (SD) = 0.24, lack of awareness (SD = 0.47), access to credit (SD = 0.35), extension contact (SD = 0.27), farms’ income (SD=0.4) and educational level (SD = 0.35). Sustainable adaptation practices mitigated weather variability and enhanced output increase. Farmers should be trained in using sustainable adaptation practices to mitigate weather variability.