Rainfall Variability and its Impact on Crop Production in Niger State, Nigeria

The net potential effect of severe changes in rainfall pattern disrupts crop production leading to food insecurity, loss of jobs, and poverty. Crop production in Niger State is predominantly rain-fed, thus, exposing this major livelihood activity to the variability of rainfall. The study examined the impact of rainfall variability and its consequences on crop production. This is to integrate climate change adaptation options into agricultural activities. Strategies for climate change adaptation options in the study area have often been made without experimental foundations placed on the level of rainfall variability and its implications on crop production. To achieve this, a climatic index (CI) analysis of rainfall was employed to ascertain the level of rainfall extremes occurrences resulting from rainfall variability using standard deviation as a tool for rationalization. The study also used crop yield to test the relationship between the yield and rainfall characteristics for thirty years (1990-2019). Rainfall data and crop yield (soybean, maize, and sorghum) were collected. The data were analysed using statistical and climatic index analyses. The results show that there were various degrees of rainfall extremes that occurred (from mild to severe dry spell and mild to severe wet spell). Moreover, the regression analysis shows that F-values > p-values. Consequently, the occurrences of severe wet spells and mild to severe dry spells impacted negatively on crop production, which undermines food security. Based on the findings, recommendations were made to mainstream the adaptation options.

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RESILIENCE OF AGRICULTURE FARMERS FOR CROP PRODUCTION IN RESPONSES TO CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ON SOUTH-EASTERN COAST OF BANGLADESH

Environment & Ecosystem science ◽

10.26480/ees.01.2020.28.37 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 28-37

Author(s):

Prabal Barua ◽

Syed Hafizur Rahman

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Agricultural Production ◽

Crop Production ◽

Yield Loss ◽

Research Work ◽

Eastern Coast ◽

Yield Reduction ◽

Dual Culture ◽

The Impact ◽

Adaptation Options

Coastal people of Bangladesh have been experiencing from lower crop productivity and fewer cropping intensity because of different climatic vulnerabilities. The research work was carried out in Banskhali upazila of Chattogram district and Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar district to assess the impact of climate change on crop production process and to suggest suitable coping strategies and adaptation options for advancing the coastal agriculture for increased agricultural production. To attain the objectives of the research, the author were collected randomly 240 sampled respondents using pre-tested interview schedule. Long-term data/information on climate change showed that there is a trend of temperature rise and erratic rainfall. Participants stated that the current climate in the study area behaving differently than in the past on a number of climate risk factors like increased temperature, frequent drought, changes in seasonal rainfall pattern, long dry spells, increase of soil salinity, increase of tidal surges affecting crop production. The study showed that the main reasons of yield reduction (20-40 % yield loss) in T. aman crop are erratic rainfall, increased intensity and frequency of drought, salinity, floods, cyclone, use of local varieties, increased incidences of pests & diseases etc in the context of climate change. Average yield level of HYV Boro is being affected (20-40 % yield loss) by high temperature and salinity and that of T.Aus/Aus crop is being affected (20-40 % yield loss) by tidal surge. Vegetables, pulses and oilseed crops are being affected (40-60 % yield loss) by soil wetness, excessive rainfall and water-logging in the selected areas. Sorjan system of cropping, rice-fish dual culture, utilization of bunds as vegetables/spices production in gher areas, floating bed agriculture and homestead gardening with introduction of salt-tolerant & drought tolerant crop varieties have been identified as potential adaptation options for development of coastal agriculture for increased agricultural production in attaining food security.

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Quantifying the Effects of Climate Change on Crop Production

Journal of Social and Economic Statistics ◽

10.2478/jses-2019-0008 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 26-42

Author(s):

Mbu Daniel Tambi

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Development Strategy ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Crop Production ◽

Control Function ◽

Research Question ◽

National Development ◽

Adaptation Strategy ◽

Main Research ◽

The Impact

Abstract This study attempts to analyze the impact of climate change on crop production using household consumption survey collected by the national institute of statistics and data imported from the department of statistics of ministry of agriculture and rural development. The main research question is: what is the relationship between climate change and crop production? Methodologically, used is made of instrumental variable and control function models to compute for the data. We realized that to a lesser extent climate change has an effect on agricultural production and more of a fishing phenomenon. In terms of policy, mainstreaming climate change adaptation into national development strategy and budgets could promote proactive engagement on the formulation and implementation of climate change adaptation strategy; this is a wise step towards increasing crop production and malnutrition reduction.

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Intensive Agriculture as Climate Change Adaptation? Economic and Environmental Tradeoffs in Securing Rural Livelihoods in Tanzanian River Basins

Frontiers in Environmental Science ◽

10.3389/fenvs.2021.674363 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Idil Ires

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Crop Yield ◽

Low Income ◽

Crop Production ◽

Production Costs ◽

African Countries ◽

Intensive Farming ◽

Income Groups

Tanzania is one of the East African countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts. Droughts and floods in 2015–16 had devastating effects on food production, crop failures and livestock deaths reaching record levels. One of the underlying projects of the Tanzanian government to mitigate these impacts is the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridors of Tanzania (SAGCOT), an area spanning the country’s largest river basin, the Rufiji, where it collaborates with national and transnational companies to intensify irrigated crop production. Irrigation, drought-tolerant seeds, and employment are three of the key government-advised strategies to help smallholders increase crop yield, adapt to climate change, and alleviate poverty through the corridor. However, little research is available on whether these goals have been achieved. This paper aims to contribute to the literature by assessing harvest and income levels following the 2015–16 drought. Through fieldwork conducted in 2016–17 in Usangu, a key paddy production area in the Great Ruaha Basin within SAGCOT, data is collected from documents and 114 informants. This study finds that irrigation did not significantly contribute to rising paddy production in the case study. Prioritizing the downstream national park and the energy sector, the government periodically cut down the water access of the case-study irrigation scheme, which exacerbated water stress. Moreover, though farmers widely shifted to intensive farming and used hybrid seeds, mainly, the high-income groups ensured and increased the crop yield and profit. The-low income groups encountered crop failure and, due to rising production costs, debt. Many of them left farming, impoverished, and sought to secure subsistence through wage laboring. This study discusses the shortcomings of the transitions from traditional to intensive farming and from farming to employment as climate change adaptation strategies and draws critical policy-relevant conclusions.

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Assessing the Sensitivity of Main Crop Yields to Climate Change Impacts in China

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos12020172 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 172

Author(s):

Yuan Xu ◽

Jieming Chou ◽

Fan Yang ◽

Mingyang Sun ◽

Weixing Zhao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Crop Yield ◽

Food Production ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Climatic Factors ◽

Climatic Data ◽

The South ◽

The North ◽

Output Elasticity ◽

The Impact

Quantitatively assessing the spatial divergence of the sensitivity of crop yield to climate change is of great significance for reducing the climate change risk to food production. We use socio-economic and climatic data from 1981 to 2015 to examine how climate variability led to variation in yield, as simulated by an economy–climate model (C-D-C). The sensitivity of crop yield to the impact of climate change refers to the change in yield caused by changing climatic factors under the condition of constant non-climatic factors. An ‘output elasticity of comprehensive climate factor (CCF)’ approach determines the sensitivity, using the yields per hectare for grain, rice, wheat and maize in China’s main grain-producing areas as a case study. The results show that the CCF has a negative trend at a rate of −0.84/(10a) in the North region, while a positive trend of 0.79/(10a) is observed for the South region. Climate change promotes the ensemble increase in yields, and the contribution of agricultural labor force and total mechanical power to yields are greater, indicating that the yield in major grain-producing areas mainly depends on labor resources and the level of mechanization. However, the sensitivities to climate change of different crop yields to climate change present obvious regional differences: the sensitivity to climate change of the yield per hectare for maize in the North region was stronger than that in the South region. Therefore, the increase in the yield per hectare for maize in the North region due to the positive impacts of climate change was greater than that in the South region. In contrast, the sensitivity to climate change of the yield per hectare for rice in the South region was stronger than that in the North region. Furthermore, the sensitivity to climate change of maize per hectare yield was stronger than that of rice and wheat in the North region, and that of rice was the highest of the three crop yields in the South region. Finally, the economy–climate sensitivity zones of different crops were determined by the output elasticity of the CCF to help adapt to climate change and prevent food production risks.

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The Impact of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies on Income and Food Security: Empirical Evidence from Small-Scale Fishers in Indonesia

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13147905 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (14) ◽

pp. 7905

Author(s):

Moh. Shadiqur Rahman ◽

Hery Toiba ◽

Wen-Chi Huang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food Security ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Substantial Effect ◽

Adaptation Strategies ◽

Small Scale ◽

Probit Regression ◽

The Government ◽

The Impact ◽

Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

The impacts of climate change on marine capture fisheries have been observed in several studies. It is likely to have a substantial effect on fishers’ income and food security. This study aims to estimate the impact of adaptation strategies on fishers’ income and their household’s food security. Data were collected from small-scale fishers’ households, which own a fishing boat smaller or equal to five gross tonnages (GT). The study sites were the two coastal regions of Malang and Probolinggo in East Java, Indonesia, due to the meager socioeconomic resources caused by climate change. A probit regression model was used to determine the factors influencing the fishers’ adaptation. Propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to evaluate the impact of the adaptation strategies on income and food security. Food security was measured by food consumption score (FCS). The findings indicated that participation in the fishers’ group affected adaptation strategies significantly, and so did the access to credit and climate information. Also, PSM showed that the adaptation strategies had a positive and significant impact on fishers’ income and food security. Those who applied the adaptation strategies had a higher income and FCS than those who did not. This finding implies that the fishery sector’s adaptation strategies can have significant expansion outcome and reduce exposure to risks posed by climate change. Therefore, the arrangement of more climate change adaptation strategies should be promoted by the government for small-scale fishers in Indonesia.

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The Pitfalls of Relating Weeds, Herbicide Use, and Crop Yield: Don't Fall Into the Trap! A Critical Review

Frontiers in Agronomy ◽

10.3389/fagro.2020.615470 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

Author(s):

Nathalie Colbach ◽

Sandrine Petit ◽

Bruno Chauvel ◽

Violaine Deytieux ◽

Martin Lechenet ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Crop Yield ◽

Weed Management ◽

Crop Production ◽

Yield Loss ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Cropping Systems ◽

Crop Productivity ◽

Arable Farming ◽

Herbicide Use ◽

The Impact

The growing recognition of the environmental and health issues associated to pesticide use requires to investigate how to manage weeds with less or no herbicides in arable farming while maintaining crop productivity. The questions of weed harmfulness, herbicide efficacy, the effects of herbicide use on crop yields, and the effect of reducing herbicides on crop production have been addressed over the years but results and interpretations often appear contradictory. In this paper, we critically analyze studies that have focused on the herbicide use, weeds and crop yield nexus. We identified many inconsistencies in the published results and demonstrate that these often stem from differences in the methodologies used and in the choice of the conceptual model that links the three items. Our main findings are: (1) although our review confirms that herbicide reduction increases weed infestation if not compensated by other cultural techniques, there are many shortcomings in the different methods used to assess the impact of weeds on crop production; (2) Reducing herbicide use rarely results in increased crop yield loss due to weeds if farmers compensate low herbicide use by other efficient cultural practices; (3) There is a need for comprehensive studies describing the effect of cropping systems on crop production that explicitly include weeds and disentangle the impact of herbicides from the effect of other practices on weeds and on crop production. We propose a framework that presents all the links and feed-backs that must be considered when analyzing the herbicide-weed-crop yield nexus. We then provide a number of methodological recommendations for future studies. We conclude that, since weeds are causing yield loss, reduced herbicide use and maintained crop productivity necessarily requires a redesign of cropping systems. These new systems should include both agronomic and biodiversity-based levers acting in concert to deliver sustainable weed management.

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The interaction of seasonal rainfall and nitrogen fertiliser rate on soil N2O emission, total N loss and crop yield of dryland sorghum and sunflower grown on sub-tropical Vertosols

Soil Research ◽

10.1071/sr15286 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 54 (5) ◽

pp. 604 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

G. D. Schwenke ◽

B. M. Haigh

Keyword(s):

Crop Yield ◽

Crop Production ◽

Field Experiments ◽

N2o Emission ◽

N2o Emissions ◽

N Loss ◽

N Losses ◽

Total N ◽

Tropical Regions ◽

The Impact

Summer crop production on slow-draining Vertosols in a sub-tropical climate has the potential for large emissions of soil nitrous oxide (N2O) from denitrification of applied nitrogen (N) fertiliser. While it is well established that applying N fertiliser will increase N2O emissions above background levels, previous research in temperate climates has shown that increasing N fertiliser rates can increase N2O emissions linearly, exponentially or not at all. Little such data exists for summer cropping in sub-tropical regions. In four field experiments at two locations across two summers, we assessed the impact of increasing N fertiliser rate on both soil N2O emissions and crop yield of grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) or sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in Vertosols of sub-tropical Australia. Rates of N fertiliser, applied as urea at sowing, included a nil application, an optimum N rate and a double-optimum rate. Daily N2O fluxes ranged from –3.8 to 2734g N2O-Nha–1day–1 and cumulative N2O emissions ranged from 96 to 6659g N2O-Nha–1 during crop growth. Emissions of N2O increased with increased N fertiliser rates at all experimental sites, but the rate of N loss was five times greater in wetter-than-average seasons than in drier conditions. For two of the four experiments, periods of intense rainfall resulted in N2O emission factors (EF, percent of applied N emitted) in the range of 1.2–3.2%. In contrast, the EFs for the two drier experiments were 0.41–0.56% with no effect of N fertiliser rate. Additional 15N mini-plots aimed to determine whether N fertiliser rate affected total N lost from the soil–plant system between sowing and harvest. Total 15N unaccounted was in the range of 28–45% of applied N and was presumed to be emitted as N2O+N2. At the drier site, the ratio of N2 (estimated by difference)to N2O (measured) lost was a constant 43%, whereas the ratio declined from 29% to 12% with increased N fertiliser rate for the wetter experiment. Choosing an N fertiliser rate aimed at optimum crop production mitigates potentially high environmental (N2O) and agronomic (N2+N2O) gaseous N losses from over-application, particularly in seasons with high intensity rainfall occurring soon after fertiliser application.

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How will future climate depending agronomic management impact the yield risk of wheat cropping systems? A regional case study of Eastern Denmark

The Journal of Agricultural Science ◽

10.1017/s0021859620001045 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

J. Macholdt ◽

J. Glerup Gyldengren ◽

E. Diamantopoulos ◽

M. E. Styczen

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Crop Production ◽

Cropping Systems ◽

Future Climate ◽

Catch Crops ◽

Agronomic Management ◽

The Future ◽

Yield Risk ◽

Management Factors ◽

The Impact

Abstract One of the major challenges in agriculture is how climate change influences crop production, for different environmental (soil type, topography, groundwater depth, etc.) and agronomic management conditions. Through systems modelling, this study aims to quantify the impact of future climate on yield risk of winter wheat for two common soil types of Eastern Denmark. The agro-ecosystem model DAISY was used to simulate arable, conventional cropping systems (CSs) and the study focused on the three main management factors: cropping sequence, usage of catch crops and cereal straw management. For the case region of Eastern Denmark, the future yield risk of wheat does not necessarily increase under climate change mainly due to lower water stress in the projections; rather, it depends on appropriate management and each CS design. Major management factors affecting the yield risk of wheat were N supply and the amount of organic material added during rotations. If a CS is characterized by straw removal and no catch crop within the rotation, an increased wheat yield risk must be expected in the future. In contrast, more favourable CSs, including catch crops and straw incorporation, maintain their capacity and result in a decreasing yield risk over time. Higher soil organic matter content, higher net nitrogen mineralization rate and higher soil organic nitrogen content were the main underlying causes for these positive effects. Furthermore, the simulation results showed better N recycling and reduced nitrate leaching for the more favourable CSs, which provide benefits for environment-friendly and sustainable crop production.

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Modeling the Impact of Climate Changes on Crop Yield: Irrigated vs. Non-Irrigated Zones in Mississippi

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13122249 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (12) ◽

pp. 2249

Author(s):

Sadia Alam Shammi ◽

Qingmin Meng

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Crop Yield ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Information Criterion ◽

Growing Season ◽

Maximum Temperature ◽

Linear Regression Models ◽

The Impact

Climate change and its impact on agriculture are challenging issues regarding food production and food security. Many researchers have been trying to show the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on agriculture using different methods. In this study, we used linear regression models to assess the impact of climate on crop yield spatially and temporally by managing irrigated and non-irrigated crop fields. The climate data used in this study are Tmax (maximum temperature), Tmean (mean temperature), Tmin (minimum temperature), precipitation, and soybean annual yields, at county scale for Mississippi, USA, from 1980 to 2019. We fit a series of linear models that were evaluated based on statistical measurements of adjusted R-square, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). According to the statistical model evaluation, the 1980–1992 model Y[Tmax,Tmin,Precipitation]92i (BIC = 120.2) for irrigated zones and the 1993–2002 model Y[Tmax,Tmean,Precipitation]02ni (BIC = 1128.9) for non-irrigated zones showed the best fit for the 10-year period of climatic impacts on crop yields. These models showed about 2 to 7% significant negative impact of Tmax increase on the crop yield for irrigated and non-irrigated regions. Besides, the models for different agricultural districts also explained the changes of Tmax, Tmean, Tmin, and precipitation in the irrigated (adjusted R-square: 13–28%) and non-irrigated zones (adjusted R-square: 8–73%). About 2–10% negative impact of Tmax was estimated across different agricultural districts, whereas about −2 to +17% impacts of precipitation were observed for different districts. The modeling of 40-year periods of the whole state of Mississippi estimated a negative impact of Tmax (about 2.7 to 8.34%) but a positive impact of Tmean (+8.9%) on crop yield during the crop growing season, for both irrigated and non-irrigated regions. Overall, we assessed that crop yields were negatively affected (about 2–8%) by the increase of Tmax during the growing season, for both irrigated and non-irrigated zones. Both positive and negative impacts on crop yields were observed for the increases of Tmean, Tmin, and precipitation, respectively, for irrigated and non-irrigated zones. This study showed the pattern and extent of Tmax, Tmean, Tmin, and precipitation and their impacts on soybean yield at local and regional scales. The methods and the models proposed in this study could be helpful to quantify the climate change impacts on crop yields by considering irrigation conditions for different regions and periods.

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