SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE AMONG MAIZE FARMERS IN NORTHEASTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined the sources of information on climate change among maize farmers in Northeastern Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was employed in the selection of 337 respondents for the study. Data were collected through structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that personal experience was the major source of information on climate change with a mean value of 3.777 and telephone call, newspaper and radio had a mean of 3.715, 3.709 and 3.436, respectively. The study also indicated that the least considered factor was workshop, the lowest with a mean of 3.202. The result of the rotated component matrix on sources of information on climate change indicated that only social, technical know-how, institutional and mass media factors were extracted. The rotational factor analysis is suitable as the Kaiser- Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value is 0.613 with is above the Kaiser recommended value and the Bartlett’s test of Sphericity was significant at (1092.589; P< 0.001). The finding revealed that maize farmers employed different climate change adaptation strategies based on their perception on the effects of climate change obtained mainly from their sources of information. The study recommend that Government should subsidy all means of information source to farmers and all information should be correctly, timely information to farmers that led to profit maximization, thus high standard of living to rural dwellers.