Assessing the vulnerability of farmers, fishermen and herdsmen to climate change in Nigeria

Abstract

This research is aimed at assessing the vulnerability of farmers, fishermen and herdsmen to climate change in Nigeria. The study was motivated to examine the underlying causes and assess the degree of vulnerability as well as examines the conflicts between farmers and herdsmen as a result of climate change. This research employed the use of quantitative and qualitative means of data gathering techniques as well as physical observations. Six states (Kebbi, Adamawa, Nasarawa, Osun, Ebonyi, and Akwa Ibom) were selected on the ground that they are key food production areas within the ecological zones of the country and are therefore essential to continual food security in the country. More so, they double as fishing communities in order to aid the comprehensive study of all the effects of climate change on farmers and fishermen alike. The study observed that the level of vulnerability of rural dwellers most specifically farmers, herdsmen and fishermen to climate change is very high due to their socioeconomic, ethnic and historical perspective of their trend. The study therefore recommends that urgent step needs to be put in place to help control natural hazards and manmade disasters. However, serious measures is also needed in order to minimize severe societal, economic and political crises; some of which may either escalate to violent conflicts or could be avoided by efforts of conflict resolution and prevention by the initiation of a process of de-escalation together by applying the best-fit adaptive and mitigation measures to climate change vulnerability in rural communities of Nigeria.