Climate change mitigation practices among arable crop farmers in Saki East local government area, Oyo state, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the climate change mitigation practices among arable crop farmers in Saki East Local Government Area of Oyo State. Multiple sampling procedure was used to get a sample size of 120 respondents for the study. Interview schedule was used to collect information from the respondents. The result shows that majority (83.3%) of the respondents were male and average of 17.3±4.71 years of experience in arable crop farming. Majority of the respondents indicated that climate change had caused scarcity of food (85.0%), reduction in crop yield through flood and drought (75.0%), and reduction in water availability (60.0%). Use of drought resistance crop (mean=3.0), mixed cropping (mean=2.7) planting of early mature crop and change of seed rate (mean=2.6) ranked 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd, respectively as the mitigation practices and adaptation measures adopted for arable crop farming. Also, lack of climate information on mitigation practices (100%), lack of resources and modern technology (85.0%), high cost of fertilizer (75.0%), inadequate of funding support (60.0%) were the major constraints faced in using the adaptation measures. There were significant relationship between sex (?²=21.875), age (?²=144.875), marital status (?²=11.725), education (?²=65.456) and effects of climate change on arable crop production. The study concludes that arable crop farmers mainly employed the use drought resistance variety, mixed cropping, and early maturing variety practices to mitigate the adverse effects loss of crops and food insecurity caused by climate change. Thus, extension empowerment programmes to build resilience to climate change of farmers is needed among farmers.