Understanding the Effects of Climate Change on Crop and Livestock Productivity in Nigeria

Aim: Agriculture entails majorly crop and animal production. Crop and Livestock production provide the major human caloric and nutrition intake. Assessing the impact of climate change on crop and livestock productivity, is therefore critical to maintaining food supply in the world and particularly in Nigeria. Different studies have yielded different results in other parts of the world, it is therefore, very important to examine the linkage between climate change and agricultural productivity in Nigeria.

Study Design: The study utilized secondary data. The study utilize climate data from Nigerian Meteorology Station and Carbon emission, Crop and Livestock production data from FOASTAT.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried in Nigeria and it covers the period between 1970-2016.

Methodology: The data were used to estimate the empirical models. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, trend analysis, stationarity, Co-integration and Fully-Modified Least Squares regression.

Results: The result of the research reveals that there is variation in the trend of the climatic factors examined and also variation in crop and livestock production over the period covered by the study in Nigeria. The finding also shows that rainfall, temperature and Carbon emission are the climatic factors that significantly affect crop and livestock production in Nigeria. Long term adverse impact of climate change on crop and livestock production index indicates threat to food availability to the country.

Conclusion: The study concluded that climatic variables have significant effect on agricultural productivity in Nigeria. The study recommended the need to put in place measures that will reduce the negative effects of climate on agricultural production.