Smallholder Farmer Adaptation to Climate Change in the Sahel Zone of Nigeria: Strategies, Effectiveness, and Barriers

This study examines the climate change adaptation strategies adopted by smallholder farmers in Nigeria's Sahel agro-ecological zone, assessing the effectiveness and barriers associated with each strategy. The Sahel zone in Yobe, Borno, and northern Sokoto States is among Nigeria's most climate-vulnerable farming areas, facing progressive desertification, declining and erratic rainfall, and increasing temperature stress. Farmers in this zone have adopted a range of adaptation strategies, but their relative effectiveness and the barriers limiting broader adoption have not been systematically assessed. This study uses a mixed-method design, combining a survey of 280 smallholder farmers in three Sahel zone states with two years of yield monitoring on a subsample of 80 farms using different adaptation strategies. Adaptation strategies assessed include crop variety switching, crop calendar adjustment, water harvesting, crop diversification, and livelihood diversification. Yield, income, and food security outcomes are compared across adaptation strategy groups using regression analysis. Findings reveal that combined technology and management adaptations, particularly drought-tolerant varieties combined with water harvesting structures, achieve the best yield outcomes under drought years, reducing yield losses by 42 percent relative to non-adapters. Financial constraints, limited access to adapted variety seeds, and knowledge gaps are the primary adaptation barriers. The study recommends integrated adaptation support packages addressing simultaneously knowledge, technology, and financial barriers.

Keywords: climate adaptation, smallholder farmers, Sahel zone, Nigeria, drought-tolerant varieties.