EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE COPING AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES ON FOOD SECURITY AMONG SMALLHOLDER MAIZE FARMERS IN THE TOLON DISTRICT AND SAVELUGU MUNICIPAL

Abstract

The study assessed the effects of climate change coping and adaptation strategies on food security among smallholder farmers in the Northern Region of Ghana. Purposive and simple random sampling was used to select a total of 240 maize farmers from 8 randomly selected communities in Savelugu/Nanton municipal and Tolon district. The analytical methods used included descriptive analysis and the Kendall’s coefficient of concordance. The results revealed that smallholder maize farmers were fully aware of the level of climate change in their various localities as this was seen in the mean of means value of 1.97, (approximately 2.0) with an SD = 0.76, which corresponds to the “Agree” response category on the likert scale. The results from the study also revealed among other that; farmers now practice mixed cropping, farmers now use fertilizers and pesticide, farmers now change their planting date, farmers resort to planting leguminous trees on farms, farmers have resorted to planting cash crops and also migrate to urban area in search of greener pastures. Also, some coping strategies that were adopted by smallholder farmers to respond to the effects of climate change are; reduction in the number of times they eat in a day, engagement in daily work for cash, engagement in micro-enterprise activities, reduction of household expenditure, sale of household assets, migrating to urban areas to seek for jobs and receiving remittances from family and friends to meet the household needs. The results further indicate that, generally respondents agree to some extent that climate change has had a negative effect on food security among smallholder maize farmers. The challenges farmers face in trying to cope and adapt to the effects of climate change are; lack of credit, inadequate subsidies, lack of support from government and the private sector among others. The research showed that the effects of climate change on food security is worsening with time, therefore it is recommended that Government, Non-Governmental Organisatios (N.G.O’s) and all stakeholders in the agriculture sector should come out with pragmatic measures so as to mitigate the effects of climate change/variability on food security among the smallholder farmers.