Climate Shocks, Environmental Degradation and Resource Conflict: Implications for Agricultural Livelihoods and Food Security in Niger Delta Region of Nigeria.

Abstract

There is an overwhelming evidence to suggest that environmental change drives conflicts, and that resource depletion and degradation undermine food security and livelihood wellbeing in communities where people are dependent on land and water resources. Therefore, understanding the vulnerability, food security, adaptation and resilience aspects of climate shocks in the context of land degradation and conflicts has immense practical significance particularly in the climate-impacted and conflict-afflicted Niger Delta region. Employing survey data collected from Rivers and Bayelsa States, this study investigates the vulnerability of the farming and fishing households to the triple challenge of climate shock, resource conflict and environmental degradation, and how these challenges undermine food security needs of various occupation groups in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. The study also investigated the range of adaptation practices prevalent in the region, as well as factors influencing the adoption of these adaptation strategies. Five hundred and three (503) households were selected using multi-stage sampling techniques. Ratio analysis was used to analyse the vulnerability levels of the households, ordered logit model was employed to access the effect of vulnerability on the food security status of households and multinomial logit model was used to determine factors affecting the household choice of adaptation strategies. The results show that farming and fishing households have the similar vulnerability score, 0.42 and 0.43 respectively. Although, the farming households were more exposed to the triple stressors; the fishing households seem to be more sensitive to the triple stressors owing to their poor physical and natural asset base. The two groups share similar adaptive capacity. Vulnerability to the triple stressors and having high dependency ratio increase the probability of being in the higher categories of food insecurity while household annual income, household size, access to social network, farm size and participation in non-farm work increases the probability of being food secure. Adaptation strategies adopted by farming households were soil and water management, crop management and livelihood diversification. Factors influencing their choice of adaptation strategies were age, gender, household size, education, extension and farm size. The adaptation strategies employed by the fishing households were intensification (which include use of improved fishing gears, putting more effort and time in fishing) and livelihood diversification. Factors affecting their choice of adaptation strategies were education, access to climate information, extension, household income, perception of shift in rainfall and location. To reduce food insecurity policy makers should focus on efforts that are aimed at reducing vulnerability of agricultural household to the triple stressors such as mitigation and adaptation efforts and providing opportunities for livelihood diversification. To promote the adoption of adaptation strategies among the two livelihood groups attention should focus on education, skills training and extension.