Paper short abstract:

Farmers use various climate change adaptation strategies to combat climate change and to improve household food security. Some of which include altering cropping timing, soil and water conversation, and varying the planting and harvesting periods

Paper long abstract:

The primary goal of agriculture is to produce food for the sustenance of livelihood, but in recent times, the food production system has been threatened by climate change events. Climate change poses a major challenge towards food production. Therefore, adaptation practices are needed to maintain farm productivity to ensure adequate food availability, affordability, assessibility and utilisation. This study investigates the diverse strategies adopted by the rural farming households to mitigate the adverse effect of climate change and determinants of climate change adaptation practices among smallholder farmers in Southwest Nigeria. Cross-sectional data were collected from 460 smallholder farmers in Ogun state, Nigeria. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Endogenous Switching Probit Model (ESPM) to estimate the determinants of climate change adaptation strategies on food security status of rural households.

Major findings showed that 87.3% of the respondents were aware of climate change, the mostly adopted adaptation strategies were; using of improved cassava varieties, varying the planting and harvesting time, as well as soil and water conservation. Household food security showed that 50.0% of the households were food insecure with severe hunger, while only 11.3% were food secure. Significant influencers of food security included: education, family labour use, gender, membership of farmers’ association, participation in off-farm activities, and small livestock asset ownership. Designing policies that facilitate effective adaptation in agriculture requires careful consideration of the factors that affect farmers’ decisions to adopt adaptation strategies. Therefore, adaptation planning policies should consider these factors to optimally improve farmers’ adaptation capacity and food security.