Indigenous Practices for Climate Change Adaptation among Rural Households in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Climate change has been described as among the major challenges of the twenty-first century. However, this trend cannot be completely halted but can only be slowed down through the development and adoption of adaptation practices especially among the rural people whose major source of livelihood is agriculture which is at stake. This paper examined the indigenous practices for climate change adaptation among rural households in Imo State. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select the sample. A total of 108 respondents were used for the study. Descriptive statistics were used in analyzing the data obtained from the study. Results show that a majority (78.3%) of the respondents were aware of climate change while about 40.6% knew a very little about it. The result also shows that the most effective local adaptation practices to climate change in the study area included growing drought-resistant crop varieties (M = 1.14), planting deeper into the soil to avoid heat stress (M = 1.10), increased weeding ( M = 1.29) and changing the timing of land preparation (M = 1.10). Further, the results show that major constraints to adaptation to climate change in the study area included limited access to improved crop varieties (M = 1.95), high cost of farm labour (M = 1.80), inadequate financial resources to adapt (M = 1.80) and high cost of diversification of enterprise (M = 1.78). The paper recommends the massive involvement of the extension agency and the mass media in climate change adaptation programmes so as to raise the awareness of people on the subject and thus increase their adaptive capacity.