Cowpea Farmers’ Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Iddo Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Climate change is one of the factors affecting cowpea production in Nigeria. This paper assessed cowpea farmers’ vulnerability to climate change and as well ascertained the adaptation strategies used in the Iddo local government area of Oyo state in Nigeria with the hope of achieving climate resilience for sustainable cowpea production. A survey of 108 randomly selected cowpea farmers revealed that the farmers in the study area were highly susceptible to climate change impacts. Most of the respondents (87.1%) had highly adopted climate change adaptation strategies for cowpea production. Their proactive solutions include combining various forms of adaptation strategies according to farm sizes and the intensity of their vulnerability. Significant relationship existed between farm size (r-values = 0.02, pv=0.0), vulnerability to climate change (r-values 0.1, pv = 0.01) and climate change adaptation strategies used by cowpea farmers. For effective climate change or variability resilience, adaptation policy for smallholder cowpea farming should require inputs from the local experts with understanding of local climatic variability and change of the farming community.