Impact of Climate Change on Agricultural Production and Sustainability in Nigeria

Two major issues that have recently dominated international development debates are climate change on the one hand and the survival of agricultural production systems on the other hand. This study therefore attempts to provide sufficient empirical evidence-base for invigorated debate on the development of the agricultural sector in Nigeria in the context of climate change. The data analysis follows two approaches: when climate change is captured in the model and when it is not. After extensive and rigorous analysis of data, results reveal that if climate change is isolated from the model, irrigation, fertilizer, arable land and agricultural labour significantly correlate with crop production both on the aggregate and on individual samples; agricultural labour is a significant factor influencing livestock production; while agricultural machinery and population density significantly determine forestry output. After accounting for climate change, analysis indicates that crop and livestock sub-sectors are impacted by rainfall alone, while both rainfall and temperature impact on fishery. Conversely, forestry is not significantly affected by climate change. Findings equally reveal that the impact of other agricultural inputs is significantly reduced by climate change, indicating that beside the direct negative impact of climate change on agriculture, it can also have an indirect negative effect by reducing the impact of other agricultural production inputs. Further breakdown of the crop sub-sector shows that only the rainfall component of climate change will impact on cassava alone. The impact of climate change on yam, rice, sorghum, millet and maize is found to be insignificant. Also, irrigation, fertilizer, arable land and agricultural labour are found to be significantly associated with the sample crops. However, this association is appreciably reduced by the forces of climate change.