Research Article
Johnson Oluwole Akintonde
Abstract
The study assessed the level of use of climate change adaptation strategies among arable crop farmers in Oyo and Ekiti States, Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure was used in the selection of 235 farmers. Both structured interview schedule and Focus Group Discussion were used to elicit information from the respondents which were analysed with both descriptive and inferential tools. The mean age of the respondents was 49.43 years, 63.0% and 37.0% of males and females’ arable crop farmers were involved in the study with mean household and farm sizes of 6.09 and 9.18 hectares respectively. The most highly used climate change adaptation strategies include; cultivation of improved varieties, altering of planting date, fertilizer application and mixed cropping and the associated constraints were; capital unavailability, irregular extension services, inadequate production inputs and poor access to information on climate change. Ordered probit analysis revealed significant relationship between sex (1.72; p>0.1), religion (5.14; p>0.01), years spent in school (1.77; p>0.1), source of information (3.39; p>0.01) and level of use of climate change adaptation strategies. The study recommends that advisory services, provision of production inputs and infrastructural facilities should be encouraged as well as the use of strategies on low side level of usage by the various stakeholders in agricultural development while efforts should be redirected in the provision of necessary assistance especially capital, subsidizing arable crop production inputs and reintegration of climate information into Nigeria national policies.