Impacts of Climate Variability on Sustainable Agriculture in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Rainfall and Temperature are important factors in agriculture especially in Nigeria where rain-fed agriculture is practiced extensively and agriculture contributes to food security and provides employment for urban and rural dwellers. Therefore, climate variability represents a major danger to agriculture by modifying the rainfall and temperature pattern, thereby resulting to a big peril in the sustainability of agriculture. This is the reason all countries of the world are concerned about the effects of climate variability on agriculture. This work therefore, examined the impact of climate variability on rainfall and temperature in Imo State, South Eastern Nigeria. The rainfall and temperature data were gotten from Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) for a period of 30 years which was analyzed by using descriptive statistics, decadal distribution, trend graph anomalies and 5 year moving average. The analysis showed increasing trend pattern in yearly maximum, minimum temperature and decrease in annual rainfall, The third order polynomial trend shows a decrease in the anomaly of annual mean rainfall (y = -0.0002x4) and a persistent increase in the mean temperature anomaly especially in the second decade (1996-2007).The discoveries show that there is a notable variability in temperature and rainfall pattern which revealed an increase in temperature and decrease in annual rainfall. This calls for serious attention as people in this part of Nigeria critically depend on rainfall for agricultural practices.It is recommended that government should support the agricultural sector by providing mechanized farming systems such as irrigation and drilling of water borehole in farm sites for agriculture, especially for the rural farmers and create awareness to the farmers on recent trends in climate issues to achieve sustainable agriculture.