Perceived Effects of Climate Change on Transhumance Pastoralists in Ogun State, Nigeria

The study examined perceived effects of climate change on grazing land, herds’ performance and examined the coping strategies of the pastoralists to climate change. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 120 respondents for the study. Data were analyzed using percentages, frequencies, tables and Chi square statistical tools. The result of the study showed that 37.5% of the respondents were between the ages of 51-60 years with an average age of 49.8 years. The results revealed that 67.5% of the pastoralists strongly agreed that the pattern of rainfall in recent time affects pasture availability. Consequently 47.5% and 52.5% of them reported a decrease in milk production and increase in herd’s mortality rate respectively due to the effect of climate change. A significance relationship was established between factors of climate change and milk production of the herd (calculated x = 52.00, tabulated x = 7.8147. p ≤ 0.05). It is therefore recommended that the pastoralists be trained in forage conservation techniques. They should also be encouraged to pool their resources to enjoy economics of scale by the extension workers. Grazing reserves should be developed by the government to fast track the disposition of the pastoralists to sedentary life.


Introduction
The world is witnessing the adverse effects of climate change which include frequency and intensity of storm, thunder, flood, drought, hurricanes, increased frequency of fire, poverty, malnutrition, reduced agriculture productivities, water need and supply, adverse effects on grazing land and pasture quality.Climate change also led to rise in sea level.It had a cumulative effect on natural resources and disruption of eco-system.The impact of climate change can be vast in Nigeria; this means that some stable ecosystems such as the Sahel Savanna may become vulnerable because warming will reinforce existing patterns of water scarcity, increasing the risk of drought in Nigeria and most countries in West Africa (BNRCC, 2008).
Climate change as suggested by some researchers could impact the economic viability of livestock production systems worldwide.Surrounding environmental conditions directly affect mechanisms and rates of heat gain or loss by all animals (NRC 2002).Lack of prior conditioning of livestock to weather events often results to catastrophic losses in the domestic livestock industry.The potential risk associated with livestock production systems due to global warming can be characterized by levels of vulnerability, as influenced by animal performance and environmental parameters.When combined performance level and environmental influences create a low level of vulnerability, there is little risk (e.g.rate of gain, milk production per day, etc.).However, combining an adverse environment with high performance pushes the levels of vulnerability and consequent risk to even higher levels.Inherent genetic characteristics or management scenarios that limit the animals ability to adapt to or cope with environmental factors also puts the animal at risk.It also affects the feed intake of the animal because ingestion of food is directly related to heat production, any change in feed intake and /or energy density of the diet will change the amount of heat produced by the animal.The ambient temperature has the greatest influence on voluntary feed intake.(1) There is no significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics and coping strategies of pastoralists to climate change.
(2) There is no significant relationship between adverse changes in climatic factors and milk production of the herds.

Study Area
Ogun state was created in Nigeria in the year 1976 alongside with six ( 6 The State is naturally endowed for food and cash crop production, Agricultural production is the major means of livelihood of the people of the state.However there are influxes of pastoral Fulanis from the northern part of the country into the state probably due to climate change.

Sampling Procedure and Sample Size
The target population for the study was the pastoral Fulanis in the study area.The study used a multi stage sampling technique to select the respondents.Stage one involved a purposive selection of five LGAs where the pastoralists are mostly located.These include Odeda, Egbado South, Egbado North, Ipokia and Obafemi Owode.The second stage involved the random selection of four Fulanis settlements in each LGAs.The final stage was the random selection of seven Fulanis per settlement to make up a sample size of 140.However, only 120 questionnaires were returned and analyzed.

Data Analysis
Data were analyzed with the used of percentages, frequencies counts and Chi-square statistics.

Socio-Economic Characteristics of the Pastoralists
Table 1 indicated that 37.50% of the respondents were between the ages of 51-60 years with an average age of 49.8 years.At this age, Ismaila (2010) reported that pastoralists are incapable of handling tedious farming activities such as covering long distances to graze the animals.However it was observed that most respondents looked mal-nourished and older than their age.A possible explanation of their physical appearance might be the long distance covered on daily basis to feed their animals.Majority (90%) of the pastoralists were male with an average of 29.5 years in transhumance pastoralism.The tending of cattle requires long distance travelling on daily basis.This is probably beyond the scope of the female.The result revealed that 58.8% of the respondents were married while 15% of them were widow.This indicates that there is a high mortality rate among the male pastoralists suggesting that pastoralism entails a lot of job hazards.Furthermore, 50.8%, 10.8% and 5% of the respondents had quranic, primary and secondary education respectively.This implies that the Fulanis are mostly adherent of Islamic faith.The average herd size was 21.The frequent search for pasture and water might be the basis for keeping small herd size.

The Effects of Climate Change on Grazing Land
Table 2, summarized the effects of climate change on pasture availability, rainfall pattern, drought and water availability.The results revealed that majority (67.5%) of the pastoralists strongly agreed that the pattern of rainfall in recent time affects pasture availability.This implies that the pastoralists would wander a long distance in search of pasture and water.However, 50% of the pastoralists reported that flood occurrence is not a hindering factor or constituting any threat to pasture availability.Also, about 40% of the pastoralists strongly disagreed that drought is not a common occurrence in the state while more than half of the pastoralists (52.5%) strongly disagreed that pasture and water is readily available throughout the year in their domain.This agreed with findings of BNRCC ( 2008) that the impact of climate change can be vast in Nigeria.This means that some stable ecosystems such as the Sahel Savanna may become vulnerable because warming will reinforce existing patterns of water scarcity and increasing the risk of drought in Nigeria and indeed most countries in West Africa.Consequently, half (56.2%) of the pastoralists cover a far distance to graze their animals.

The Effects of Climate Change on Performances of Herds
The perceived effects of climate change on performance of the herds are shown in Table 3.
Thirty-eight percent (38%) of the respondents strongly agreed that the herd's milk production has reduced due to climate change.Also, more than half (52.5%) of the respondents strongly agreed that herd mortality is on the increase while (56.2%) reported the emergence of new types of diseases.Furthermore, 60% of the respondents agreed that abortion in cattle has also increased.In addition 40.8% of the respondents reported incidence of pre and post calving mortalities in their herds.This might not be unconnected with the quality of existing pasture and the need to cover long distances under harsh weather conditions.This finding agreed with NRC (2002) that climate change could impact the economic viability of livestock production systems worldwide.Surrounding environmental conditions directly affect mechanisms and rates of heat gain or loss by all animals.

Coping Strategies of the Pastoralists to Climate Change
Coping strategy is an adjustment or self insurance pursued by the pastoralists to ensure future income generation from cattle production and minimize the adverse effects of climate change on cattle productivity.Table 4 shows that, majority of the pastoralists (65%) engaged in sinking of open wells for the watering of their cattle, while 57.4% of the respondents reported the use of crop residue.It is important that pastoralists are exposed to technology of hay and silage making and methods of storing crop residue in order to maintain the nutritional value of these feeding stuffs.More than half (58.5%) of the pastoralists' respondents disagreed with the migration option as a way of mitigating the adverse effects of climate change while 52.5% of them resulted to herd size reduction.More than half (57%) of the respondents preferred the cultivation of pasture and legumes for their animal.

Relationship between the Adverse Changes in Climatic Factors and Performances of the Herds
The result of Chi square analyses, in table 5, established a significant relationship between adverse changes in climatic factors and milk production (x 2 = 52.00,p ≤ 0.05), herd mortality with (x 2 = 20.725,p ≤ 0.05), new types of diseases are noticed (x 2 = 53.500,p ≤ 0.05)) and pre-calving mortality increases (x 2 = 15.500,P ≤ 0.05).The result confirms the findings of NRC ( 2002) that lack of prior conditioning of livestock to weather events often results to catastrophic losses in the domestic livestock industry.According to the findings, combining an adverse environment with high performance pushes the levels of vulnerability and consequent risk to even higher levels.Inherent genetic characteristics or management scenarios that limit the animals ability to adapt to or cope with environmental factors also puts the animal at risk.Ambient temperature has the greatest influence on voluntary feed intake.Most of the local breeds of cattle have reached their peak of production by virtue of their poor genetic make-up and unfavorable environmental situations (Amogun, 2009).Table 6, also shows a significant relationship between selected socio-economic characteristics and coping strategies of the pastoralists to climate change, Age (x 2 = 25.375,P ≤ 0.05), marital status (x 2 = 49.30,P ≤ 0.05) and educational level (x 2 = 51.200,P ≤ 0.05).This finding confirms the report of Sharada et al. (2000) that both age and educational attainment are some of the important contributory factors to exposure and adoption of innovations.The youth are highly travelled, venturesome and can take risk, while educational attainment will enable them to access information on animal husbandry practices through the print or electronic media that can assist them to mitigate adverse effects of climate change.The wives can assist the husband in the marketing of animal products while the children can assist in grazing of the animals.The larger the size of the household the ease with which these tasks can be accomplished and innovations are adopted (Rogers, 2003).

Conclusion and Recommendations
The study revealed that climate change is not only limited to the northern parts of the country but its adverse effects are noticed on the performance of herds of pastoralists (especially on milk production, herd mortality and incidence of unidentified new diseases) in Ogun State, Nigeria.The coping strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change were inadequate to support better performance of the herd.The willingness of the pastoralists to accept a sedentary way of life through the rejection of transhumance (migration) is a welcome development.This will fast tract their access to extension services and improve on their coping approaches to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.Therefore, the extension workers should expose the pastoralists to better approaches and coping strategies such as hay and silage making.The pastoralists should cooperate on joint use of resources for production of pasture to meet the food as well as water requirements of their herds.The grazing reserves in the state should be properly developed to encourage the pastoralists to adopt a sedentary way of life.This will enable their children to access education, urban values and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on their herds.

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Table 2 .*
Perceived effects of climate change on grazing land, n Figures in parenthesis are in percentages.
) other states with Abeokuta as its capital.Ogun state lies between longitude 2°45′ and 3°55′ East of Greenwich Meridian and latitude 7°01′ and 7° North of the Equator.It covers a land area of approximately 16,406.226square kilometers.The State is bounded in the West by the Benin Republic, in the South by Lagos State and the Atlantic Ocean, in the East by Ondo State and in the North by Oyo and Osun States.The population of the state is 3,728,098 comprising 1,847,243 males and 1,880,855 females (NPC, 2006).The state has twenty Local Government Areas.These include Abeokuta North, Abeokuta South, Ado-Odo/Ota, Egbado North, Egbado South, Ewekoro, Ifo, Ijebu East, Ijebu North, Ijebu North East, Ijebu Ode, Ikenne, Imeko-Afon, Ipokia, Obafemi-Owode, Ogun Waterside, Odeda, Odogbolu, Remo North, Shagamu

Table 3 .
Perceived effect of climate change on performance of herds (n = 120) *Figures in parenthesis represent percentages.

Table 4 .
Coping strategies of pastoralists to mitigate the effects of climate change (n = 120) *Figures in parentheses representpercentages.

Table 5 .
Relationship between adverse changes in climatic factors and performances of the herds (n = 120)

Table 6 .
Relationships between the socio-economic characteristics of the pastoralists and coping strategies of climate change (n = 120)