Smallholder farmers’ perception of climatic and socio-economic factors influencing livelihoods in the transition zone of Ghana

Background: The study analyzed smallholder farmers’ perception with regards to climatic and socio-economic changes influencing their agriculture livelihoods and coping strategies thereof in the transition zone of Ghana. Methods: We used semi-structured questionnaires for household survey involving 59 households and focus group discussions (n=60) for data collection in three communities. Results: Farming systems are influenced by high and extreme temperatures, delayed onsets of rain, short raining season as well as unpredictable raining seasons. Similarly, socioeconomic factors affecting the communities and their households’ livelihood included i) bad road network; ii) high prices of farm inputs; iii) prevalent crop pests and diseases and iv) absence of irrigation facilities. It was ascertained that though most farmers have not made conscious efforts to adapt strategies in their farming system to climate change and the social stressors, as expressed in ‘doing nothing or bearing losses’ and we are at the ‘mercy’ of the weather, there are hidden resilience mechanisms that can be harnessed to strengthen their adaptation capabilities. Women in the study area have adapted to the changes in the weather and safeguarded against post-harvest loss of cassava more effectively as compared to their male counterparts. Similarly, the prevailing group farming and maintenance structure (locally known as ‘Noboa’) strengthen the shared responsibility and reciprocity among migrant’ farmers. Conclusions: Though these agrarian communities have some coping strategies to overcome some climatic and socioeconomic challenges, their general adaptive capacity in terms of physical, financial and human assets are limited. This, therefore, calls for the capacity building of both men and women on best farming practices, adaptation strategies and piloting of irrigation systems to enhance their major livelihood but these must be complemented with good road network for ease of access to the market centres

Perceived stressors of climate vulnerability across scales in the Savannah zone of Ghana: a participatory approach

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with climatic and non-climatic stressors. Research attention has focused on climatic stressors, such as rainfall variability, with few empirical studies exploring non-climatic stressors and how these interact with climatic stressors at multiple scales to affect food security and livelihoods. This focus on climatic factors restricts understanding of the combinations of stressors that exacerbate the vulnerability of farming households and hampers the development of holistic climate change adaptation policies. This study addresses this particular research gap by adopting a multi-scale approach to understand how climatic and non-climatic stressors vary, and interact, across three spatial scales (household, community and district levels) to influence livelihood vulnerability of smallholder farming households in the Savannah zone of northern Ghana. This study across three case study villages utilises a series of participatory tools including semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The incidence, importance, severity and overall risk indices for stressors are calculated at the household, community, and district levels. Results show that climatic and non-climatic stressors were perceived differently; yet, there were a number of common stressors including lack of money, high cost of farm inputs, erratic rainfall, cattle destruction of crops, limited access to markets and lack of agricultural equipment that crossed all scales. Results indicate that the gender of respondents influenced the perception and severity assessment of stressors on rural livelihoods at the community level. Findings suggest a mismatch between local and district level priorities that have implications for policy and development of agricultural and related livelihoods in rural communities. Ghana’s climate change adaptation policies need to take a more holistic approach that integrates both climatic and non-climatic factors to ensure policy coherence between national climate adaptation plans and District development plans

Impact of Extreme Temperature and Soil Water Stress on the Growth and Yield of Soybean (<i>Glycine max</i> (L.) Merrill)

Climate change is a major environmental stressor that would adversely affect tropical agriculture, which is largely rain-fed. Associated with climate change is an increasing trend in temperature and decline in rainfall, leading to prolonged and repeated droughts. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of climate variables such as temperature, relative humidity, vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and soil water on the phenology, biomass, and grain yield of soybean crops. A greenhouse experiment was set in a split plot design with three average environmental conditions as the main plots: E1 (36 °C, RH = 55%), E2 (34 °C, RH = 57%) and E3 (33 °C, RH = 44%). Additionally, there were three water treatments: W1 (near saturation), W2 (Field capacity), and W3 (soil water deficit) and two soybean varieties (Afayak and Jenguma). These treatments were replicated nine times. The results showed that high temperatures (E1) accelerated the crop development, particularly at flowering. Additionally, increased atmospheric demand for water under a high temperature environment resulted in high evapotranspiration, leading to high transpiration which probably reduced photosynthetic activity of the plants and thereby contributing to biomass and grain yield loss. Biomass and yield were drastically reduced for the combined effect of high temperature (E1) and drought (W3) as compared to combined effect of ambient temperature (E3) and well-watered condition (W1). Increasing temperatures and erratic rainfall distributions associated with climate change poses a potential threat to the soybean production in Ghana

Impact of Extreme Temperature and Soil Water Stress on the Growth and Yield of Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill)

Climate change is a major environmental stressor that would adversely affect tropical agriculture, which is largely rain-fed. Associated with climate change is an increasing trend in temperature and decline in rainfall, leading to prolonged and repeated droughts. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of climate variables such as temperature, relative humidity, vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and soil water on the phenology, biomass, and grain yield of soybean crops. A greenhouse experiment was set in a split plot design with three average environmental conditions as the main plots: E1 (36 &deg;C, RH = 55%), E2 (34 &deg;C, RH = 57%) and E3 (33 &deg;C, RH = 44%). Additionally, there were three water treatments: W1 (near saturation), W2 (Field capacity), and W3 (soil water deficit) and two soybean varieties (Afayak and Jenguma). These treatments were replicated nine times. The results showed that high temperatures (E1) accelerated the crop development, particularly at flowering. Additionally, increased atmospheric demand for water under a high temperature environment resulted in high evapotranspiration, leading to high transpiration which probably reduced photosynthetic activity of the plants and thereby contributing to biomass and grain yield loss. Biomass and yield were drastically reduced for the combined effect of high temperature (E1) and drought (W3) as compared to combined effect of ambient temperature (E3) and well-watered condition (W1). Increasing temperatures and erratic rainfall distributions associated with climate change poses a potential threat to the soybean production in Ghana

Integrating Biochar and Inorganic Fertilizer Improves Productivity and Profitability of Irrigated Rice in Ghana, West Africa

The efficiency of mineral fertilizer use in most soils in Sub-saharan Africa is low. Prominent among the reasons for this is low soil carbon stock. In this study, we hypothesized that in the short term, combined use of biochar and inorganic fertilizer in irrigated rice (Oryza sativa var KRC Baika) cropping systems will increase soil organic carbon storage, N recovery and agronomic efficiency of N use (above world average of 55% and 20 kg grain&middot;kg&minus;1&middot;N respectively) and improved economic returns compared to the sole use of inorganic fertilizer. A two-year (4‒cropping cycles) field trial was, thus, conducted on a Vertisol. The experiments were designed as split&ndash;plot with two (0 and 10 t&middot;ha&minus;1) biochar and four (0, 45, 90, 120 kg&middot;ha&minus;1&middot;N) nitrogen application rates. Additionally, the effect of biochar on the chemical properties of the soil was investigated using standard protocols. Biochar application improved the soil organic carbon storage in the topsoil. There were significant interactions between the application of biochar and nitrogen fertilizer on yield parameters. Introducing biochar significantly increased root volume and nutrient (N, P and K) uptake, resulting in increased grain and straw yield. Grain yields under biochar amended plots were higher than sole fertilizer amended plots in 14 out of 16 instances (cropping cycles &times; N rates). The increase in grain yield was between 12 to 29% across N rates. Biochar amendment also enhanced agronomic N use and apparent N recovery efficiencies in 3 out of the 4 cropping cycles. Gross margin indicated that biochar application under irrigated rice cropping systems is economically feasible in all cropping cycles and N rates. However, the value cost ratio of biochar application was higher than for sole inorganic fertilizer in three out of the four cropping cycles (each cropping cycle has three N rates). The soil organic carbon storage of biochar amended soil increased by 17% under unfertilized condition and by 32% under fertilized condition. To enable the promotion and efficient use of the biochar technology in enhancing productivity and profitability in irrigated rice, extension officers and farmers will need to be trained on how to char the rice husk to reduce emissions prior to upscaling the technology to farmers

Evaluation of Alkaline Hydrolyzable Organic Nitrogen as an Index of Nitrogen Mineralization Potential of Some Coastal Savannah Soils of Ghana

Numerous biological and chemical methods have been proposed over the years for estimating the nitrogen (N) mineralization capacity of soils; however, none of them has found general use in soil fertility testing. The efficacy of a recently proposed alkaline hydrolysis method for assessing N availability in soils compared with the standard long-term incubation technique for determining potentially available N was evaluated. The nitrogen mineralization of 12 surface soils incubated under aerobic conditions at 25 &deg;C for 26 weeks was determined. Field-moist soils were direct-steam distilled with 1 M KOH or 1 M NaOH; the NH3 released was trapped in boric acid, and its concentration was determined successively every 5 min for 40 min. The cumulative N mineralized or hydrolyzed was fitted to the first-order exponential equation to determine the potentially mineralizable N (No) and an analogous &ldquo;potentially hydrolyzable N (Nmax)&rdquo; for the soils. The flush of CO2 (fCO2) following the rewetting and incubation of air-dried soils under aerobic conditions for 3 days was also determined. The results showed that the Nmax values differed considerably among the soils, indicating differences in the chemical nature and reactivity of the organic N content of the soils, and were significantly correlated with No and fCO2 values. The estimated Nmax and No values ranged from 105 to 371 mg N kg&minus;1 and 121 to 292 mg kg&minus;1, respectively. Based on the simple and inexpensive nature of the alkaline hydrolysis procedure, the reduction in the incubation time required to obtain No (months to minutes), and the strong association between Nmax and No, we concluded that Nmax is a good predictor of the biologically discrete and quantifiable labile pool of mineralizable soil organic N (ON), and the use of the alkaline hydrolyzable ON as a predictor of No merits consideration for routine use in soil testing laboratories for estimating the N-supplying capacity of soils