Impact of Rainfall Variability on Yam (Dioscorea Spp) Yield in Lafia Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, Nigeria
Keywords:
EViews Statistical Analysis, Yam production output, Rainfall variabilityAbstract
Rainfall variability influences almost all human endeavours, most especially in the field of business, health, transportation and tourism, and most importantly in the aspect of agriculture. Agriculture is the main activity engage by most developing countries even with the general threat to food security globally. This study centered on examining the impacts between rainfall variability and yam yield for the period of eleven years covering from 2006- 2016 in Lafia Local Government area. Eleven years (monthly/annual) rainfall data with annual yam yield data of Lafia Local Government were collected for the study. The analysis was carried out using E-Views 9 statistic for the trends and impacts analysis while Mann Kendall analytical approach was also used with the aid of Xl statistical software/tool for an in-depth regressing/coefficient of determinants analysis and variance of regression models analysis in the study. The result shows that rainfall variability has a significant impact of about 79% over yam production output (yield) and the remaining 21% is contributed by other factors than rainfall. The study also reveals a variability level of rainfall and yam output of Lafia at 10% and 37% coefficient of variance for a low and moderate extent of variability respectively. It was also concluded that there exists a strong positive impact of rainfall variability over yam-tuber output for the period under study. It is therefore recommended that other researchers and relevant bodies should carry an empirical study on the impacts of total land area for yam cultivation, soil fertility and socio-political factors to yam tuber production output (yield) in the study area.
References
C. B. Alexander, M. T. Bakpo & C. Woke, “Temporal Variation of Rainfall Occurrence: The E?ect on Tuber Crop Production in Niger Delta, South-South, Nigeria” IOSR Journal of Agriculture and Veterinary Science (IOSR-JAVS) 8 (2015) 14.
O. Audu, “FG to Investigate Poor Quality Yams Exported to U.S.” Nigeria Minister of Agriculture (Vanguard Newspaper).
Australia Tourism and Transport Forum, “Responding to Climate Change” Tourism and Transport Sector Position Paper (2008).
N. Binbol & N. Marcus, “Geography of Nasarawa State: A study of Flora and Fauna” (2005).
O. F. Durdu, “E?ect of Climate Change on Water Resources of the Buyuk Menderes River Basin, Western Turkey” J. Agric. 34 (2009)
319.
M. Haile, “Weather pattern, Food Security and Humanitarian Response in Sub-Saharan Africa” Philisophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 360 (2005) 2169.
J. W. Hansen, “Realizing the Potential Bene?ts of Climate Prediction to Agriculture: Issues, Approaches and Challenges” 74 (2002) 309330.
J. O. Riede, R. Posada, A. H. Fink & F. Kaspar, “What is on the 5th IPCC Report for West Africa” Intergovernmental Panel for Climate
Change (IPCC) (2007).
International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), “Why is Climate Change Relevant for Business” Help Save the Third World CRS international Workshop and CRS Talk for Private Sector (2018).
G. Joachim, “The Ultra-Poor Neglected Resource, Future Potential” International Journal for Rural Development (2008).
R. Lamboll, N. Valerie & N. Nick, “Emerging Approaches for Responding to Climate Change in African Agricultural Advisory Services: Challenges, Opportunities and Recommendations for an African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services and Climate Change Response Strategy” (2011).
World Health Organization, “Climate Change and Health” (2009).
United State Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA), “Climate Impact on Agriculture and Food Supply” Climate Change Impacts 104 (2007) 1970319708.
J. Schmidhuber & F. Tubiello, “Global Food Security Under Climate Change” Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 104 (2007) 1970319708.
L. Travis & S. Daniel, “Agricultural Technologies for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Developing Countries: Policy Options for Innovation and Technology Di?usion” International Centre for Trade and Sustainable DevelopmentIPC Platform on Climate Change, Agriculture and Trade (2010).
J. M. Mohammed, “E?ect of Rainfall Trend on Yam Yield in Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State, Nigeria” Environmental
Analysis & Ecology Studies (2018).
J. T. Yashim, F.A. Auwal & I. Abbass, “Rainfall Variability and Yam Tuber Production in La?a, Nasarawa State” FULAFIA Journal of
Sociological Studies (2018).
Nasarawa state Agriculture Development Programme (NADP), “Annual Crop Production Figure”, Nasarawa State Ministry of Agriculture, La?a (2016).
La?a Synoptic weather Station, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), “Annual Farmers Report on Agricultural Activities” NIMET
Agro-Met Report on Climate and Agriculture (2018).
