Effects of Climate Change on Agricultural Productivity in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

The effects of the dynamics of climate on agricultural production are the thrust of this paper. Temperature, rainfall and crops (rice, maize, cassava, groundnut and garden eggs) data were collected for a period of 10 years from the meteorological and agricultural department of the Agricultural development programme (ADP) Gwagwalada. The work assembled and analysed all available data which are needed for evaluating the implication of climate change on agricultural production in the FCT. Some measure of central tendencies were used to critically analyse the parametres such as arithmetic mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variance, simple regression, correlation and multiple regression model to correlate the relationship among rainfall, temperature and crop yield. The paper concludes there exists positive relationship between each climatic element and crop yield but on a very weak significance; there has been constant increase in temperature over the years with 2009 having the highest of 35oC; there is decline in rainfall over the years, and subsequent decline in the productivity of the crops from the correlation carried out in the study. These recommendations were forwarded: Crop yield should be regressed on other environmental factors such as soil fertility etc.; A longer period of data could be collected for better analysis; and data on rainfall, temperature and other crops could be collected and investigated upon to correlate the result with this finding.Keywords: Agriculture, Climate Change, Crop yield, Federal Capital Territory