ASSESSMENT OF THE PERCEPTION OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND ITS EFFECT ON FOOD CROP PRODUCTION IN BAMA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF BORNO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed food crop farmer’s perception of climate variability and its effects on food crop production in Bama LGA Borno State, Nigeria. Multi stage sampling was used in drawing 100 respondents for this study. Information was collected using structured questionnaires. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics used includes frequencies, means and percentages. The inferential statistics used was multiple regressions model. The result revealed that majority of 71% where male and dominated food crop production, 76% were also married. Furthermore, 56% had 5-8 household members. 20% had tertiary education, while 43% had primary education. The result revealed that 45% had 5-8ha of land for food crop production. An overwhelming majority of 90% perceived those gases released from factories/industries and auto mobile ranked 1st as responsible for causing climate variability. 87% ranked deforestation as 2nd cause of climate variability, while 10% ranked traditional neglect as the 12th and least cause of climate variability. For the effect of climate variability on food crop production, majority of 95% ranked decrease in crop yield as the 1st effect of climate variability, 94% ranked reduced income from crop yield as the 2nd effect of climate variability. The least perceived effect of climate variability was reduced cover crop which was ranked by 50% of the respondents in 14th place. The result of factors influencing the perceived effect of climate variability was positive and significant at P≤0.05 and P≤0.01, respectively. The coefficient of gender was positive and significant at P≤0.05 which implies that every male had higher chance of being affected by the effect of climate variability than their female counter part. The study recommended more campaign on climate variability for rural farmers. Also, government, non-governmental organizations and policy makers should create an avenue where more female farmers could participate and have access to arable land.