Gender Role Analysis in Extent of Climate Change Adaptation among Arable Crop Farmers in Abak Agricultural Zone, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study analysed gender roles in climate change adaptation among arable crop farmers in Abak agricultural zone of Akwa Ibom State. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 120 respondents for the study. Percentages, cross tabulation with Chi-square were used to specifically analyse the level of involvement of male and female arable crop farmers in farming activities; examined the male and female farmers’ perception of climate variation, as well as analyse the extent of adoption of adaptation strategies by the arable crop farmers to mitigate the effect of climate change according to gender. Findings revealed that female farmers were involved in planting, weeding, application of fertilizer, harvesting, pest management, soil management and conservation, processing procedure and marketing while the male farmers were found to be more proficient in land clearing, land tilling, land stumping and land ridging. The study also showed that climate is changing and has caused increased erosion, excessive flooding and delay in planting time due to fluctuations in rainfall pattern in the study area. Again, female farmers slightly applied adaptation strategies more than the male farmers during crop production. In conclusion, therefore, both men and women farmers had roles in climate change adaptation during crop production. Implications for climate change mitigation and adaptation planning is that, in designing gender-responsive programmes, these roles should be streamlined. Obviously, female arable crop farmers demonstrated greater advocacy for climate change adaptation strategies implying that making gender-responsive programmes more effective towards female farmers and community members in sustainable use of resources could enhance adaptation among households.