Climate Change Indigenous Coping Strategies Among Cassava Farmers in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

This study assessed the climate change indigenous coping strategies among cassava farmers in Akwa Ibom State. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of cassava farmers; examined the awareness of climate change coping strategies; assessed cassava farmers' sources of information on climate change; identified the climate change coping strategies adopted by cassava farmers; and examined the factors influencing the adoption of indigenous coping strategies in the study area. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 180 respondents for the study. Descriptive statistics and logit regression were used to analyze data. The result showed that the mean age of the respondents was 43 years, 53.3% were female and the majority of the respondents were married (63.9%), and most of the farmers had secondary education (56.7%). The mean farm income was N13,200.76. The major sources of information were friends and fellow farmers (x̅ = 3.0), radio (x̅ = 2.9) mobile phones (x̅ = 2.9), while the use of leaflets (x̅ = 2.3) internet (x̅ = 2.3) and social media (x̅ = 2.2) were least utilized. The farmers took mulching (98.8%), organic manuring (97.2%) and mixed cropping (96.6%) as their major coping strategy to climate change, while terracing/ land location (27.8%), planting of trees (22.8%) and construction of dams (15.0%) were least utilized. Therefore, the study recommended that there should be an incorporation of indigenous knowledge of farm management into climate change policies which can lead to the development of effective adaptation/coping strategies that are cost-effective, participatory and sustainable.