Volume 9 • Issue 11 • 1000761
J Food Process Technol, an open access journal
ISSN: 2157-7110
Open Access Research Article
Journal of Food
Processing & Technology
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ISSN: 2157-7110
Baoro et al., J Food Process Technol 2018, 9:11
DOI: 10.4172/2157-7110.1000761
*Corresponding author: Serge Kevin Gildas Soulé Baoro, School of Environment
and Natural Resource Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan-Hubei
Province, Luoshi Road 122, Wuhan, Hubei, 430070, China, Tel: 86-27-87871225,
E-mail: soulegil@yahoo.fr
Received August 30, 2018; Accepted October 04, 2018; Published October 08,
2018
Citation: Soulé Baoro SKG, Song S, Fagariba CJ (2018) Climate Change
Adaptation and Agricultural Development in Central Africa Republic-Evidence of
North-West. J Food Process Technol 9: 761. doi: 10.4172/2157-7110.1000761
Copyright: © 2018 Soulé Baoro SKG, et al. This is an open-access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Farmers' perceptions ethno-weather climate change in the North-west of Central African local knowledge is based on
experiences to explain and understand the recent climate change. These farmers' knowledge on climate change has been
capitalized using the tools and techniques of socio-anthropological investigations (interview, questionnaire and focus group).
The results show that over 80% of people have noted strong sunlight which is in fact the way to express higher temperatures.
Facts suggestive manifestations of climate change including reducing the number of days of rain and the duration of the
rainy season, early arrival and late withdrawal of the harmattan, the disappearance of animal and plant species and seasons
announcing the disruption of the cropping calendar. These climatic perturbations lead the peasantry to develop strategies to
adapt to endogenous consequences of the observed changes. Perceptions ethno-conventional meteorological data observed
face can help analyze the real impacts of climate change in the North-western of Central African. A total of 225 small-scale
farmers were sampled for survey and 100 key informants were used in focus group discussions. The logistic regression
model used in the study indicated that education, transportation, income, inputs cost and extension services were the factors
with high tendency of undermining farmers’ ability to adapt to climate change. In addition, Weighted Average Index used to
measure weather extremes established that drought and temperature had the highest level of occurrence. Change in planting
date, improved crops varieties, mixed cropping, and land rotation was the most preferred practices. The study concluded that
farmer’s resilience could be enhanced if governments and concern organizations intensify adaptation campaigns and train
farmers on adaptable practices including, use of improved seeds, subsidies, increasing Agriculture Extension Agents and
provision of irrigation facilities were also good interventions to improve climate change resilience.
Climate Change Adaptation and Agricultural Development in Central Africa
Republic-Evidence of North-West
Serge Kevin Gildas Soulé Baoro
1
*, Shaoxian Song
2
and Clifford James Fagariba
1
1
School of Environment and Natural Resource Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan-Hubei Province, Luoshi Road 122, Wuhan, Hubei, 430070, China
2
Hubei Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources Processing and Environment, Wuhan University of Technology, Luoshi Road 122, Wuhan, Hubei, 430070, China
Keywords: Farmers; Perception; Agriculture; Climate change;
Adaptation practices; Ethno-weather
Introduction
Countries and international organizations are making a conscious
efort to address climate change threat to humanity. Economic activities
including agriculture, mining, and infrastructure development in
quest of satisfying global needs continuously degrade the natural eco-
system. In developing countries, farmers are mostly afected by climate
change as a result of factors including poor education, poor income,
use of obsolete tools, high input cost and poor capacity building [1,2].
Unsustainable natural resource exploitation, especially in developing
countries and the industrialization of developed countries for economic
growth, has immeasurably triggered global warming, weather extremes,
health issues, poor yield and extinction of certain plant and animals
species [3,4]. Studies have shown that climate change continuously
worsens drought and dry spell issues in most part of Africa hence
threatening food security and poverty alleviation on the continent
[5]. Other research suggested that Africa vast arable land is a great
potential for economic growth if agricultural policies efciently address
climate change threat [6,7]. About 90% of African countries dwell
directly or indirectly on agriculture for employment, poverty alleviation
and economic growth [8]. Terefore, the slow pace of researchers
and policymakers in using pragmatic solutions to militate climate
change constraints will probably have ripples efect on the continent.
Related fndings indicate that Africa governments piecemeal way of
implementing climate change policies have afected food security to
the extent that countries within Sudan and the Sahel Region are likely
to face severe famine and poverty by 2035 [9]. Formation of regional
climate change networking system to share adaptation ideas and
research fndings is of the essence since Africa continent have similar
climatic conditions. Central Africa Republic (CAR) being one of the
African countries with Agriculture as the economic backbone needs
to tackle climate change constraints holistically by bringing on board
all stakeholders who invariably contribute to agriculture promotion.
Tere is established empirical evidence that CAR agriculture sector is
dwindling as a result of poor sensitization of farmers and inadequate
government support to tackle adaptation constraints [10]. Similar
research by Armah et al. [11] hinted that climate change impact
experienced highly afects farming communities in savanna areas and
its environs. Agriculture in CAR is predominantly small scale with
most of the farms less than 2 hectares due to a high cost of inputs and
inadequate government support. A study by Mabe [8], indicated that
subsistence agricultures are highly susceptible to climate change as a
result of poor income level farmers and lack of alternative source of
employment. Northwest of CAR is noted for producing food crops
such as cassava, millet, guinea corn, rice... as a result of good climatic
conditions for such crops. However, in recent times, unfavorable climatic
conditions have exposed farmers to severe drought, low rainfall, high
temperature, and diseases. Tis compelled most of the farmers to adapt,
change planting period from early April to late June to avoid drought
by either migrating to the South to look for the nonexistent job during