The Importance Of Climate Change In Agriculture

Rural farmers’ perceptions and understanding of climate change is crucial for adaptation policies and practices designed to deal with threats and risks of climate change on agricultural sector. Such understanding is fundamental in Africa, since climate is the primary determinant of agricultural effectiveness, and changes in climate have pronounced impacts not only on agricultural sector but other sectors. Studies have shown that climate change and extreme climatic events pose great threats on agricultural production, food security, community health, natural resources, biodiversity and water availability (McCarthy et al 2001, IPCC 2007a). Projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013) have indicated also that the

Scientists have been greatly concerned about the potential impacts of climate change/variability on agricultural sector in this part of the world. Consequently, several attempts have been made to study the impacts, adaptation strategies and mitigation of climate change in relation to agricultural sectors in both global and local scales. This is because the relationship between climate and agriculture is a complex one, with several feedback loops and causal relationships. For example, a study by Bradshaw et al. (2004) examined the adoption of crop diversification in Canadian prairie agriculture for the period between 1994 and 2002, weighing its strengths and limitations for risk management. The results from the study showed that individual farmers have undergone specialization in their cropping patterns since 1994. The study established that farmers were somehow coping with climatic risks and the trend is unlikely to change in the immediate future, regardless of expected climate change and known risk-reducing benefits of crop diversification. In Nigeria, like many other Africa countries, medium- and long-term adaptive measures have been identified in the national communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Some of these countries have identified emergency measures for adaptation in their National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), which focus on agriculture, food security, and water resources management. Many of the measures have not yet been implemented; leaving many farmers without a sound understanding of the challenges facing agricultural production, resulting from climate change. These reveal that African countries are likely to be more severely affected because of their lack of adaptive capacity to