Tropentag 2023, September 20 - 22, Berlin, Germany "Competing pathways for equitable food systems transformation: trade-offs and synergies."

Nexus between climate change adaptation strategies and poverty: evidence from rural farming households in Kwara State, Nigeria

University of Ibadan, Dept. of Agricultural Economics, Nigeria

Abstract

Climate change has continuously threatened the sustainability of food production among rural farming households in sub-Saharan Africa, coupled with the increasing number of individuals living in outrageous poverty. Thus, this study empirically examined the relationship between climate change adaptation strategies and rural households' poverty in Kwara State, Nigeria.
Primary data collected with a well-structured questionnaire from six rural communities was used for the study while, descriptive statistics, Foster Greer and Thorbecke's (FGT) poverty measure, and logistic regression were used in data analysis. The study shows that there were more married males with an average household size of 7 members within the rural households. The majority of the farmers had no access to credit and were no longer in their productive years with ages between 61-80 years. Furthermore, more of them had only secondary education. The FGT analysis shows that the poverty line of the rural farming household was 1143.63, and a higher percentage of them were core-poor with only a minority who fell into the non-poor category. Sex, age, years of education, annual farm income, farming experience, access to agricultural information, and access to credit, being core and moderately poor influence the adoption of the five Climate Change Adaptation Strategies (CCAs) among the rural farming households as shown by the binary logistic regression analysis. We concluded that rural farming households were core poor and climate change adaptation strategies improved their well-being level. Therefore, the government and development partners in agriculture should focus on practical ways of disseminating better production systems and CCAs to rural farming households. Also, credit support facilities should be made available to the farmers across ages, and continuous education of the farmers on the appropriate CCAs that can be adopted in a particular locality should be encouraged.

Keywords: Adaptation strategies, climate change, poverty, rural farming households

Contact Address: Idowu Fasakin, University of Ibadan, Dept. of Agricultural Economics, Ibadan, Nigeria, e-mail: idowufasakin2010gmail.com