Effects of Global Climate Change on Nigerian Agriculture: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effects of global warming on Nigerian agriculture and estimation of the determinants of adaptation to climate change. Data used for this study are from both secondary and primary sources. The set of secondary sources of data helped to examine the coverage of the three scenarios (1971-1980; 1981-1990 and 1991-2000). The primary data set consists of 1500 respondents’ but only 1250 cases were useful. This study analyzed determinants of farm-level climate adaptation measures using a Multinomial choice and stochastic-simulation model to investigate the effects of rapid climatic change on grain production and the human population in Nigeria. The model calculates the production, consumption and storage of grains under different climate scenarios over a 10-year scenery. In most scenarios, either an optimistic baseline annual increase of agricultural output of 1.85% or a more pessimistic appraisal of 0.75% was used. The rate of natural increase of the human population exclusive of excess hunger-related deaths was set at 1.65% per year. Results indicated that hunger-related deaths could double if grain productions do not keep pace with population growth in an unfavourable climatic environment. However, Climate change adaptations have significant impact on farm productivity.