CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Background
According to Scholze et al. (2006), adverse effect of climate change and variability has become environmental and socio-economic pest which is increasingly causing harm to people around the world. This assertion was also supported by Zhu & Zhou (2010) suggesting that climate change is now one of the main environmental problem which is threatening the survival and the development of human beings.
According to Scholze et al. (2006), climate change serves as a serious inhibitor to the attainment of food security and also to the fulfillment of major developmental agenda in majority of the global economies of which Ghana cannot be exempted. It has attracted the attention of the academic community, governmental and non-governmental organizations.
IPCC (2014) posits that climate change is any change in climate over a period of time which comes about as a result of both human activity and natural variability. Montle & Teweldemedhin (2014) noted that negative impact of climate change is projected to be experienced considerably by poor people who depend on semi-subsistence agriculture for their existence. The reason can be found Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) (2011), which reports that higher a proportion of the rural households are limited by the essential ability to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. This is due to the fact that policy response is inadequate, institutional arrangements are very feeble, and interventions are not based on the needs of the households. Minia (2004) predicted that the total annual rainfall will decline by 9-27%
whiles the mean daily temperatures will rise by 2.5 – 3.2 in the whole universe by the year 2100.
The latest report by the IPCC, indicates that the adverse effects of global warming are already being experienced in every continent on the globe. However, few countries are prepared for the risk that the change conveys (IPCC, 2014). Boko et al. (2007) reports that agricultural production as well as food security in many African regions and countries have the highest probability to be severely compromised by climate change and variability. Orindi & Murray (2005) also noted that negative impact of climate change has been observed in Africa where it has directly affected climate-dependent activities such as agriculture and indirectly impacted on social aspects such as health, education, conflict and poverty.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007), Africa has already experienced worsening food production which has frustrated the efforts to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing hunger by half by 2015.
According to Parry (2007), poor and excessive precipitation has reduced global food crop production by 30%. This has led to an increment in food insecure households from 160 million in 1996 to over a 200 million in the 2000s. According to the World Bank (2008), climate variability and change has been experienced in Ghana with three major physical impacts observed, namely changes in rainfall and temperature as well as rise in sea level.
Lobell et al. (2011) reported that under optimum rain-fed management, maize-growing regions in Africa could be hit by yield losses to about 65% at 10C increase in temperature. Under drought conditions, 100% of these regions would experience substantial yield losses. Owusu et al. (2008) reports that there has been a fluctuation in the rainfall pattern in Ghana towards a longer dry season and vanishing short dry spell. High temperatures in Ghana have resulted in low yield of maize due to the reduction in growing period and increase in evapotranspiration rate (Dazé, 2007).
Agriculture contributes significantly to the Ghanaian economy. For instance, in the year 2013 according to (ISSER, 2014), agriculture contributed 22% to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In addition, approximately two-thirds of the manufacturing value- added is based on agricultural raw materials and provide employment to about 56 percent of the work force (FAO, 2010).
To combat the global food insecurity, Borlaug (2007) made an assertion that agriculture must provide for an additional 3.5 billion people for the next five decades. He stated emphatically that the production of the three main cereal crops alone (maize, wheat and rice) will need to increase by 70 % by 2050 in order to feed the world’s growing rural and urban populations.
Maize is among the world’s leading crops cultivated over an area of 142 million hectares with a production of 637 million tons (Paudel et al., 2009). It is one of the important staple food crops in most Sub-Saharan Africa countries. It plays key role in food security and generating income for most farmers (Hassan, 1998).
Maize is Ghana’s number one staple food crop followed by rice and domestic demand for these staples is increasing. According to MiDA (2009), the domestic demand for maize is projected to grow at 2.6% annually between 2010 and 2015. However, the 21st century has seen a shortage in the per capita global food production by 7%, the shortage is believed to have being caused by climate change and variability and low soil productivity (Rosenzweig & Parry, 1994).
Morton (2007) reports that some of the most significant negative impacts of climate change in developing countries will be felt by the smallholder farming households. According to (GSS, 2008), smallholder farming households dominate in the agriculture sector in the Ghanaian economy with about 90 percent being resource poor. Smallholder farmers primarily depend on family labour and also operate under rain-fed conditions (Chamberlin, 2008). This has contributed to the inability of Ghana to produce more maize to feed its people leading to average shortfalls of 12% in domestic supply (MiDA, 2009).
In the Brong-Ahafo Region, farmers are predominantly smallholders usually involved in the cultivation of staple crops including yam, maize, cassava, cowpea and groundnut. Farmers also engage in the rearing of small ruminants such as sheep and goats (MOFA, 2011). The adverse effects of climate change and variability on crop growing and animal rearing cannot therefore be overstated.
Problem Statement
According Adger et al. (2013), climate change is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Its effect is being felt in every endeavor of human life, such as biodiversity and
forest ecosystems, wetlands, and coral reefs, as well as agricultural and fishery ecosystems. Its negative impact is significantly felt by the rural poor in developing countries. Chang (2009) proposes that the changes in climatic variables such as amount of rainfall, temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, sunshine duration just to mention a few are very crucial in determining the yields of crops especially maize.
Variations in climate have been described as a new security threat for Africa especially in terms of food production. This is attributed to the fact that agriculture activities are climate dependent and it is the main source of livelihood for the majority of households (FAO, 2009).
The IPCC predicts that climate change will lead to decreasing crop yields in most tropical and sub-tropical regions due to deviations in temperature and precipitation patterns (IPCC, 2007). This will have significant impact on the agricultural sectors and results to increase in the prevalence of famine in developing countries (McCarthy, 2001).
Schipper and Pelling (2006) report that a fluctuation in climate will multiply the number of smallholder households who are already vulnerable. This is due to poverty, sensitivity of their geographical locations, high dependence on natural resources and inability to adopt new livelihood strategies. Smallholder farming households are particularly vulnerable given their marginalized standing and dependence on climate-sensitive livelihood strategies.
It is asserted that poor people in the poorest countries are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (Stern, 2007). Smallholder farming households have some level of experience and local knowledge in handling climate change, which help them to
cope during difficult periods. However, intense and sustained levels of variability associated with long-term climate change are outside the sphere of what traditional coping strategies are able to manage (Pettengell, 2010).
Models and information about climate variability and change are only available at global, national, and continental levels. Models are not yet able to forecast the impacts at very small scales, hence extension officers face challenges in providing farmers with knowledge that is location and ecologically specific.
Without suitable policies or adaptive measures in place, the smallholder farming households will find it difficult to undertake sustainable crop production and rearing of animals in an environment with erratic climatic conditions (Nelson et al., 2007).
Past studies on vulnerability in Ghana have mostly been based on poverty (Norton, 1995; Novignon et al., 2012; Klein & Nicholls, 1999). These studies measured vulnerability to extreme climatic events in Ghana using national aggregates without household level data. Only a few studies have focused on the household level for example (Etwire et al., 2013).
This study fills the gap in the literature by employing household data for analysis. The results from this study will contribute to better targeting of future developmental projects in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana.
The results from that studies show that smallholder farming households are more vulnerable to climate and variability are useful. However, the level of vulnerability of the households needs to be well understood. From the foregoing, the following research questions will be addressed:
- What is the level of vulnerability to climate change of smallholder maize farming households in the Brong-Ahafo Region?
- What are the determinants of vulnerability level of climate change of smallholder maize farming households in the Region?
- What are the constraints to climate change adaptation strategies of smallholder maize farming households in the Region?
Research Objectives
The main objective of this study is to analyze smallholder maize farming households’ vulnerability to climate change in the Wenchi and Techiman Municipalities in the Brong- Ahafo Region of Ghana.
Specific Objectives
- To assess the vulnerability level of smallholder maize farming households to climate change.
- To estimate the determinants of vulnerability level of smallholder maize farming households to climate change.
- To identify and rank the constraints to climate change adaptation strategies of the smallholder maize farming households in the study area.
