Climate Adaptation Strategies Used by Banana and Plantain Farmers in Delta State of Nigeria

Abstract

Climate variation is already a threat to agricultural production and employment of appropriate adaptation strategies could help reduce its effect. Hence, this study was conducted to determine the adaptation strategies being used by banana and plantain farmers in Delta state of Nigeria. Multistage sampling techniques were used to sample 136 respondents on whom interview schedule were administered. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Results show that 67.6 % of respondents were male, 64.7 older than 50 years of age, 80.1 % were married, only 7.4 % had no form of formal education and 72.1% had over ten years of farming experience. Of all the 16 items used to test knowledge of climate variation events, 8 had score above mean (0.5±0.4). Similarly, 9 of the 18 adaptation strategies had score above mean (0.4±0.4). Majority of the respondents (50.7%) had high level of knowledge of the climate variation events (7.6 – 11). However, majority (53.7%) had low level of adaptation strategies utilization (3 – 7.4). It can be inferred from the result that the utilization of adaptation strategies by the respondents was low. Therefore, it is recommended that further education be provided to farmers on the use of climate variation adaptation strategies to reduce the effect of the climate variation on agricultural production.