ASSESSMENT OF CLIMATE ADAPTATION STRATEGIES AND EFFECT ON POVERTY STATUS OF FARMING HOUSEHOLDS IN SOUTH WEST NIGERIA
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Authors: Olabisi Alaba Fawehinmi
Keywords: adaptation strategies, censored least absolute deviation, climate change, poverty
Abstract: Due to the various devastating effect that climate change poses on household livelihood, Households thus adopt various adaptation strategies against these negative effects. The study, therefore, sets out to assess different climate adaptation strategies adopted by households it effect household poverty status. A simple random sampling technique was used in the selection of 211 food crop farmers in Oyo. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics, analysis, censored least absolute deviation (CLAD) model and Foster Greer and Torbecke poverty decomposition analysis. The outcome of the study reveals that the major climate change adaptation techniques adopted by the respondents are planting of drought resistance varieties, change in time of planting and farm diversification. The result of the analysis also shows that the majority of the respondents (56.1%) are adopting two major adaptation strategies while 10.3% of the respondents are not adopting any form of climate change adaptation State techniques. The poverty line for the respondents in the study area is ₦1037.5 Decomposition of the poverty status indicates that households that use the three climate change adaptation techniques have majority (61.8%) of their respondents belonging to the non-poor group when compared with households that do not use any adaptation technique and those that did not use any adaptation technique that have majority of their respondents (68.75%) belonging to the core poor group. Age of the respondents, years of formal of educational, access to credit facilities and extension agents are common factors that determine specific adoption of the three climate adaptation strategies. The study concludes that there is a need for improved sensitization of farmers by relevant stakeholders to adopt climate change adaptation techniques as there was a positive relationship between climate change adaptation techniques and household poverty status. Policies that will enhance farmers to access extension agents for information dissemination, provision of adult literacy programs and credit facilities should be included in a nation’s policy formulation and dissemination.