Post-Harvest Adaptiveness of Crop Farmers to Future Climates in the Cross River Floodplains, Nigeria

Abstract

In this study, prevailing climate variability experienced by the farmers in the study area were identified; extent of adoption of climate-smart post-harvest technologies by farmers in the study area was determined; extent of consideration of weather/climate forecasts/warnings during post-harvest practices was assessed and the factors influencing respondents’ application of post-harvest technologies were also determined. With a multi-stage sampling technique, a total of 300 farmers were selected for the survey which primary data were obtained through questionnaires. Simple percentages, frequencies and composite index were the analytical techniques used. The study had access to more male farmers (55.0%) than female farmers (45.0%). The mean ages of the farmers stood at 39 and they were mostly married indicating that they were in their active and productive ages. It also showed that the respondents were small scale farmers with average of 11 years of farming experience. Majority of farmers had one form of education or the other and a reasonable percentage (96.0%) of the farmers have family size of 1 – 10 persons. Climate-smart post-harvest technologies commonly practiced by the farmers were proper threshing, proper shelling, proper drying, and sorting of harvested crops to remove damaged products.  Results from the composite index analysis indicate that majority of the respondents fell into the low extent of application of climate-smart post-harvest technologies. Majority of the respondents had low consideration of weather/climate predictions causing their post-harvest practices to be highly vulnerable to climate variability in the near future. Ignorance of existence, lack of knowhow, high cost of methods among others was advanced as factors influencing adoption of climate-smart post-harvest technologies. In conclusion, the study has shown that the farmers do not know how they could best respond their post-harvest practices to climate variability to guarantee environmental and climatic proof farming.