Policy adjustments for enhanced agricultural production in Nigeria after COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruptions to global food supply chains. It has led to severe economic stress and malnutrition particularly in developing countries. This paper outlines the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on agriculture and livelihoods in Nigeria, measures put in place by the Nigerian Government to cushion the effect and parses evidence on programmes and policies that can help speed up sustainable economic recovery that Nigeria desperately needs post COVID-19 pandemic, through agricultural growth. Identifying appropriate policies to enhance agricultural production and trade post COVID-19 pandemic is important for maintaining a robust global food supply. The paper concludes that it may be time for a fundamental reassessment of policies designed to tackle challenges in the agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa particularly Nigeria. The state of agriculture in any country is a reflection of the long-term agricultural plan designed and pursued by the Government to move the sector forward. In designing strategies, policies and programmes to enhance agricultural growth, the starting point is to diagnose the challenges faced by the sector and the impacts of previous measures put in place to tackle the challenges, so that lessons could be drawn for designing better and more appropriate policies. Key words: COVID-19 pandemic, agricultural policy, agrifood systems, agrarian developmen

Farm households’ levels of vulnerability to extreme weather events in South-Eastern Nigeria

The impacts of climate change risks, risk management mechanisms and the physical environment under which farm households operate play significant roles in poverty and hidden hunger dynamics in developing countries. Extreme weather events are most often triggers of changes in risk management, which also affect the capacity of households to absorb the resultant shocks. This paper based on primary data collected as part of a PhD dissertation in the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, presents an analysis of farm households’ levels of vulnerability to extreme weather events in South-eastern Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used in the selection of 120 male- and 120 female-headed farm households that constituted the sample for the study. Both structured interview schedule and focus group discussion guide were used to gather data from the respondents, which were analyzed using UNDP vulnerability index. Using household adaptive capacity approach, data were collected on human, economic and institutional capacity of farmers in coping with extreme weather events. Female-headed households were more vulnerable than their male-headed counterparts to the effect of extreme weather events with respect to some of the indicators such as farming income, years of formal education, farm size, land ownership status, number of extension contacts, access to weather information, access to remittance, membership of cooperative and assistance from National Emergency Management Agency in the area. Overall, using household adaptive capacity approach, the results of the gender- based vulnerability analysis showed male-headed farming households with a vulnerability index of 0.38 while the female-headed farming households, on the other hand, had vulnerability index of 0.68.Although female-headed farm households were more vulnerable than their male counterparts, the farmers were all generally highly vulnerable to the incidence of natural disasters because of low adaptive capacity. The study recommends that government and development partners with the responsibility of protecting the environment should be gender sensitive and redirect more effort in mitigating the negative agricultural effects caused by extreme weather events, especially among female-headed farm households who are more vulnerable

Climate Change and Sustainable Green Growth in Nigeria: Challenges and Opportunities

There is an increasing awareness that climate change is a threat to agricultural and socioeconomic development, but agricultural production activities are generally more vulnerable to risks of climate change than other sectors. However, what have not been emphasized are the opportunities that are emerging with climate change. This review was therefore undertaken to x-ray the magnitude and trend of these threats and opportunities presented for investment and livelihood development for a green growth in Nigeria and Africa. It also analyzed the challenges compounding the impact of climate change on agriculture in Nigeria. It was observed that there are ample challenges than opportunities associated with climate change in Nigeria, however, the opportunities presented, if well harnessed could fast track the green growth tempo in Nigeria while boosting job opportunities and inflow of both foreign and local investment. Therefore, it was recommended that financial institutions in Nigeria should begin to set up initiatives for leveraging into the climate finance and carbon trading; government should forge public private partnerships that will promote green investments and create more jobs for the youths and more profits for the farmers

The choice of climate change adaptation strategies among food crop farmers in Southwest Nigeria

The performance of food crop production is currently, greatly threatened by climate change. However, the extent to which these impacts are felt depends principally on the adaptation measures used by farmers to cushion the effects of climate change. This study centered on the factors that drive the choice of major adaptation measures by farmers in Southwestern Nigeria. The study used multistage sampling procedure to select 360 food crop farmers in the area. Primary data were collected through surveys to achieve this. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics and multinomial logit model. The results indicated that the main climate change adaptation strategies were multiple crop varieties, land fragmentation, multiple planting dates, crop diversification, off-farm employment and cover cropping. Factors influencing the choice of these adaptation strategies were household size, age, education, gender, average farm distance, access to credit, tenure security, and agro-ecology. A summary of their influence on the farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies suggests a relatively growing popularity for the use of cover cropping as an adaptation strategy among them. Increased use of cover cropping as climate change adaptation strategy should therefore be encouraged among farmers. In addition, land tenure security encouraged the choice of crop diversification among the respondents. This is also considered a very important strategy, given that different crops have varying degrees of resilience to climate change. A kind of land reform strategy that could make the farmers more land secured is therefore recommended

Defferentiated gender ownership of cassava fields and implications for root yield variations in small holder agriculture of southeast Nigeria

Open Access JournalAs a result of their relatively limited access to production resources, it has been variously reported that women obtain lower yields from their individual crop fields than men. Cassava root yields obtained from farmers' fields in three villages of southeast Nigeria were compared using separate ownership of fields by gender as a factor. The result of the analysis fails to confirm lower yields from women's fields. Instead, mean fresh root yield was lower for fields owned individually by men than for those owned individually by women, and about the same for fields owned jointly by the whole family and those owned individually by women. This was apparently because of differences in the use of purchased inputs, especially hired labor and improved cassava varieties, and perhaps also due to differences in the age of cassava at harvest and the intercropping of cassava as a minor crop with yam

Effects of Climate Extreme Events on Households Food Security in Taraba State, Nigeria

Climate is particularly important, as a driver of food system performance at the farm end of the food chain, affecting the quantities and types of food produced and the adequacy of production-related income. Poor households will be hardest hit by soaring food prices since they have few coping mechanisms at their disposal. For such households, occurrence of Climate change extreme events will have an immediate impact on the quantity and quality of food they consume. Hence, the study sought to determine the effects of climate extreme events on food security of households in Taraba State. Primary data on the intensity and frequency of extreme events, socioeconomic characteristics of households, food security status based on the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) was used for the study. One hundred and twenty households for the study were sampled by means of a multistage random sampling technique. Results show that the occurrence of drying up of streams and river, heat wave and harmattan duration experienced by the households positively affected the food insecurity of the household, and was significant at p ≤ 0.05, Also, the frequency of occurrence of heavy and long periods of rain also led to an increase in food insecurity and was significant at P ≤ 10%. The study also found that food insecurity increases with an increase in household size and the longer diseases and pests lasted in or around the households the more food insecure they were. The study recommends that weather forecast stations monitoring climate occurrences be established and efforts made to inform households of these occurrences, so that they can adapt accordingly