Challenges of agricultural adaptation to climate change: The case of cassava post-harvest in Southeast Nigeria
International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management
ISSN: 1756-8692
Article publication date: 4 November 2013
Abstract
Purpose
Climate change is perhaps the most serious environmental threat to agriculture in Africa, because of its impact on pre- and post-harvest agricultural productivity. The purpose of this study is to provide empirical information on the challenges of cassava post-harvest adaptation to climate change.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was conducted in two randomly selected states of southeast Nigeria. Data collection was done in two phases; first, there was a rapid rural appraisal and then a detailed survey using a questionnaire administered to 320 randomly selected cassava processors, 40 from each of eight randomly selected cassava farming communities.
Findings
The respondents were predominantly women, who process, and grow cassava. The factors affecting their level of vulnerability were gender, household size and farm size. While women were more vulnerable than men, households with greater number of persons and/or larger farm size were less vulnerable. Women's vulnerability declined from the 25th income quantile through the 50th to the 75th while the positive effect of farm and household size increased through the same trend. Education was only positively important for the 75th income quantile. The factors constraining adaptation were scarcity of processing inputs, institutional, water and poverty constraints.
Originality/value
Available literature show that most of the recent studies on climate change and agriculture have tended to concentrate on pre-harvest. Ozor et al. studied barriers to climate change adaptation among farm households of southern Nigeria. Enete and Onyekuru studied empirical evidence of challenges of agricultural adaptation to climate change, also among farmers of southeast Nigeria. Enete and Amusa presented a literature survey of challenges of agricultural adaptation to climate change. This study is, not only commodity specific, but also focused on post-harvest.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper was produced as part of a project sponsored by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Canada. The author wishes to thank CIGI for the financial assistance and anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments, which helped to bring the paper to the present level.
Citation
Anibueze Enete, A. (2013), "Challenges of agricultural adaptation to climate change: The case of cassava post-harvest in Southeast Nigeria", International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 455-470. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-08-2012-0045
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited