The Role of the Agricultural Economist in Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change in the Oil Palm Industry in the Southern Nigeria

When human activities which cause climate change raise threats to the environment, the Agricultural Economist who is also a policy maker should take careful measures even if some cause and effect relationships are not established. The vulnerability of Nigerian Agricultural sector to climate change is of particular interest to policy makers in the economy accounting for higher percentage of the labour force. There are many adaptation options which can be adopted by farmers at low cost but proper estimates of adaptation cost and benefits are currently deficient due to the involvement of wrong climate change actors. As is the case with making an economic decision, the astute response by an Agricultural Economist will depend on equating and or comparing benefits and cost. When the expected benefits of adaptation are positive, the rational decision maker (the Oil Palm farmer) will take adaptive actions. Policy options in particular must become available. Climate change will almost surely make life even harder for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable Oil Palm farmer. An Agricultural Economist must play his role in reducing the society’s vulnerability to losses from climate change and avoid restricting farmers’ capacity to adapt by limiting their options. The devastating effects of climate change and the need for an integrated response requires resilient and adaptive institutions and exemplary actors like the Agricultural Economist to lead the process towards creating an enabling environment for adaptation to climate change. This paper described the potential role the Agricultural Economist can play in climate change adaptation, in the Oil Palm industry and aims to address the question: what policy and institutional changes are needed to encourage agricultural adaptation strategies/ practices to develop the industry and the nation as a whole. The paper concluded that advances in understanding of climate change adaptation can come from collection of better data, development of new methods and models, observation of changes in climate and its effects, by an Agricultural Economist in order to accommodate new dimensions brought about by climate change

FOOD SECURITY AND POVERTY STATUS OF CASSAVA PROCESSORS IN AWKA NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ANAMBRA STATE OF NIGERIA

Cassava is one of Nigeria’s most important root cash crops and plays a key role in food security and poverty alleviation in rural areas. The study assessed the food security and poverty status of cassava processors in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria. Data were collected with a well-structured questionnaire from a cross section of 490 randomly selected cassava processors in 2019. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, mean threshold from 5 point Likert scale, logistic regression, food security index, and Foster Greer Thorbecke (FGT) poverty status model. The study reveals that the majority (60.8%) of processors is female, it equally summarized that the average age, level of education, processing experience, household size, contact with agricultural officers, enterprise size, monthly income, and monthly expenditure were 45 years, 11 years, 16 years, 9 people, 4 times, 67.36 tons, 126.5204286 USD and 91.91425714 USD at N350 per dollar respectively. The average cassava processing output was 26.02 tons/month and the processor’s food security line was 61.28 USD, while the poverty line was 84.45 USD. The study equally observed that the food security index was 1.5 with the majority (89.59%) of the processors being food secure. Also, the poverty incidence, depth and severity were 0.098, 0.055, and 0.03 respectively, while the poorest processors spent 71.5% of their income on food consumption. Furthermore, the determinants of food security were sex, age, farm size, household size, contact with agricultural officer, and cooperative membership