Climate change and food security in kano nigeria: A model for sustainable food production

Abstract

Climate change and increasing climate variability threaten the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), and some of the worst effects on human health and agriculture will be in Africa, particularly in vulnerable regions. Kano state is the most populous state in the country with majority of rural dwellers who are predominantly agrarians but still food security is uncertain. This is largely attributed to climate, which is increasingly becoming harsh. Rainfall is invariably not stable for so many years with recurring drought. Desertification and deforestation of vegetative cover compounded the problem of agriculture in the state. Despites government efforts to provide all the agricultural inputs, agriculture still stagnate and even decline. The issue of climate change was addressed by the agenda that comes out from the climate summits and convention which clearly discussed global climate change issue. It also reviews human activities and their implication to the environment. The world's climate continuing change at rates that are projected to be unprecedented in recent human history. The impacts of climate change on food production were highlighted and discussed in the paper. Data used in this paper were both secondary and primary data. Primary data collected were through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). In this case, focused Group Discussion (FGD) was adopted and farmers were interviewed all to enable us to get in-depth and comprehensive information from farmers who have had experience in the changing trends of climate for up to a period of 20 years and secondary data was derived from many years observations under taken at Malan Aminu Kano international Airport Meteorological station. The collected data was analyzed using simple graphs and mathematics to ascertain the stated postulation that climate changes grossly affect food security in Kano. The paper recommends that, the climate change management issues raised most be translated into decision and/or policy by the stakeholders, in order to ensure food security in the region. This paper also proposes a model for a sustainable agriculture to arrest the problems of declining agriculture, which is environmentally friendly.