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The phenomenon of climate change has negative impacts on rice production in Nigeria as it lowers its output and reduces farmers' income with a resultant depreciation in their livelihood. This accentuates the need for adaptation to climate change in order to reduce the growing dependency on rice importation, ensure food security as well as achieve a sustainable rice production system in Nigeria. The study therefore investigated the utilization of climate change adaptation strategies among rice farmers in three states of Nigeria. Data were collected from 298 rice farmers using interview schedule in Ebonyi, Ekiti and Niger States on their socio-economic and farm enterprise characteristics, knowledge and utilization of Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (CCAS). Data analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Knowledge of CCAS was high (55.7%) among respondents while utilization of CCAS was low (65.4%). A non-significant difference existed in the use of CCAS across the states (F = 43.15; p-value>0.05). However, continuous and frequent weeding, appropriate use of fertilizer, and early harvesting of crops were major CCAS used by respondents. The result implies that rice farmers are not totally ignorant of CCAS, but have been using one form of adaptation strategy or the other irrespective of the agro-ecology. Also, the study revealed that CCAS is ecology specific thus effective utilization should be ensured.

It is obvious that the use of newspapers is one of the ways through which literate farmers could access agriculture-related information and are acquainted with innovations in agriculture. This study investigated the content of agricultural training advertisements in three Nigerian newspapers: The Guardian, Nigerian Tribune and Daily Times. Using multistage sampling techniques, 240 editions of these newspapers containing 609 advertisements for five years (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005) were selected. In terms of agricultural subsectoral coverage, 30.3% were on veterinary services while forestry services recorded the least advertisement (4.0 %). The Nigerian Tribune newspaper has the highest coverage of agricultural training advertisements 40.7% compared to the 34.7% and 12.2% for Daily Times and Guardian newspapers, respectively. The result also showed that majority of agricultural training advertisements (81.10%) were placed on the non-prominent pages of the selected newspapers. Chi-Square analysis of association between the categories of agricultural training advertisements in the focal newspapers showed that there is significant relationship in the rate at which the sampled newspapers advertise different category of agricultural training advertisements in the newspapers (p<0.05). Chi square analysis also indicated that there is significant association between the placements of agricultural training advertisements and type of newspapers (p<0.05). This implies that advertisement placement on prominent pages of newspapers is determined by the policy of print media organization which also varies with cost of advertisement. It is therefore recommended that agricultural news items should be given more prominence as a panacea for increased information source to new entrants, especially the literate farmers to encourage farming.

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