Adoption of Climate Smart Agricultural strategies and their implications for food security in Southwest States of Nigeria

Abstract

Climate change is currently a threat to food production and food markets in Nigeria, posing population-wide risks to food supply. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is one of the possible interventions to turn around the situation to more resilient and higher agricultural productivity leading to improved food security status. This study therefore examined adoption of climate smart agricultural strategies and their implications for food security in Southwest States, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 577 respondents, and primary data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, household food insecurity access prevalence score and ordered probit regression model. The descriptive statistics results revealed that majority of rice farming households were male, with an average age of 46 years, married, have small rice farm size with four to five household members. The results of the household food insecurity access prevalence score revealed that in the Savanna and Rainforest agro-ecological zones, 39.1% and 33.5% of rice farmers were food secure, 8% and 13.9% were mildly food insecure, 15.1% and 22.2% were moderately food insecure while 37.8% and 30.4% were severely food insecure, respectively. The results of the ordered probit regression model shows that disease resistant variety, farmyard manure, minimum/ zero tillage, irrigation, integrated pest management and control flooding are the CSA that had a significant and positive influence on food security. Age of respondents, years in school, credit access, income and agro-ecological zones were also significant variables that had positive influence on food security status of respondents. It was concluded that adoption of these CSA strategies could help reduce food insecurity for rice farmers. We recommend that these significant variables should be an integral part of food security policies in Southwest States, Nigeria as this will help to improve the food insecurity status of the vulnerable rice farming households.