Rainfall and Temperature are important factors in agriculture especially in Nigeria where rain-fed agriculture is practiced extensively and agriculture contributes to food security and provides employment for urban and rural dwellers. Therefore, climate variability poses a big threat to agriculture by altering the growing season rainfall and temperature, thereby resulting to serious danger in the sustainability of food. This is why all nations of the world are concerned about the effects of climate variability on agriculture. This work therefore, examined the impact of climate variability on growing season rainfall and temperature in Imo State, South Eastern Nigeria. The rainfall and temperature data were obtained from Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) for a period of 30 years which was analyzed using descriptive statistics, decadal distribution, trend graph anomalies and 5 year moving average. The analysis showed increasing trend in annual mean maximum, minimum temperature and decrease in mean rainfall, The third order polynomial trend shows a decrease in the anomaly of annual mean rainfall (y = -0.0002x4) and a persistent increase in the mean temperature anomaly especially in the second decade (1996-2007).The findings show that there is a notable variability in the pattern of rainfall and temperature which revealed an increase in temperature and decrease in growing season rainfall. This calls for serious attention as people in this part of Nigeria critically depend on rainfall for agricultural practices. It is recommended that government should support the agricultural sector by providing mechanized farming systems such as irrigation and drilling of water borehole in farm sites for agriculture, especially for the rural farmers and create awareness to the farmers on recent trends in climate issues to achieve sustainability of food.
Social Vulnerability of Rural Dwellers to Climate Variability: Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria
