World Development Sustainability 4 (2024) 100156 Available online 5 May 2024 2772-655X/© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc/4.0/). Rainfall reliability and maize production in the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon Suiven John Paul Tume a , Wirngo Harry Mairomi b , Nyong Princely Awazi c, d, * a Department of Geography and Planning, The University of Bamenda, Cameroon b Department of Geography, HTTC, The University of Bamenda, Cameroon c Department of Forestry and Wildlife Technology, College of Technology, The University of Bamenda, Cameroon d FOKABS INC. 2500 St. Laurent Blvd, Ottawa, ON K1H 1B1, Canada A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Adaptation Climate Food security Maize production Vulnerability ABSTRACT The long-term average rainfall for a given period (month, season or year) scarcely indicates reliability because rainfall in low latitudes varies significantly from one year to the other. The less variable rainfall is, the more reliable it is, as the index of variability measures the likelihood of repetition in the mean amount of rainfall. This study bridges some gaps in related studies in the Bamenda Highlands, such as a study assessing climate change impacts on food security, where the Rainfall Anomaly Index was used and another study on the impact of rainfall on maize production using the Standardized Precipitation Index. The objectives of this study are to assess rainfall reliability and establish the impact of rainfall reliability on maize production. Rainfall data were collected from 15 stations, while maize output was collected for four localities. Results revealed that rainfall is still reliable for 13 stations, with a coefficient of variations of 9.62 to 18.54 %, while Ndop and Ndawara recorded unreliable rainfall of 23.14 % and 30.97 % respectively. Rainfall reliability was complemented by the Standardized Pre- cipitation Index, which showed that only 53.45 % of rainfall episodes were normal to sustain maize production, while 46.55 % were events of rainfall deficits. Maize production has been decreasing in Ndu, Oku and Nkum while increasing in Ndop. These findings reflect the realities of other tropical mountainous regions in the world. Faced with future climatic uncertainties, farmers should embrace agroecological practices, climate-smart agri- culture, conservation agriculture, Nature-based Solutions, Ecosystem-based Adaptation and diversification of production systems and livelihood sources to ensure food security. Introduction The long-term average rainfall for a given period (month, season or year) hardly indicates the reliability with which given amounts of rainfall can be anticipated. This is relevant in the low latitudes where there is significant variation in the quantity of rainfall from one year to the next. [1]. The less variable the total rainfall is, the more reliable it is [2] because the index of variability measures the likelihood of the average quantity of rainfall being replicated in a given period which can be a year, season or month. Several measures of rainfall variability are commonly used as the coefficient of variation (CV), which defines rainfall reliability thresholds. This measure is more meaningful provided that the data is normally distributed. Annual rainfall totals of more than 750 mm tend to be more normally distributed than mean seasonal and monthly totals [2]. These variations directly affect the timing of the agricultural system in the tropics because they are rain-fed. Climate projections indicate that high latitudes and some parts of the monsoon regions will experience an increase in rainfall while tropical and sub-tropical regions will experience a decrease in rainfall [3]. Climate change-driven extreme weather events which are more frequent and intense nowadays have major adverse impacts on terrestrial eco- systems and food security [4]. Rain-fed farming systems in particular are adversely affected by climate change as changes and variations in weather patterns and climate elements notably temperature and rainfall which reduce crop productivity and increase incidents of crop failure [5, 6]. According to the FAO [7], maize is one of the mostly widely grown and consumed cereal in the world with an estimated total production of just over 1 billion metric tons in the year 2015. According to Tingem et al., [8], maize output is estimated at 100–300 kg/ha in the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon. This represents a critical source of food for * Corresponding author at: Department of Forestry and Wildlife Technology, College of Technology, The University of Bamenda, Cameroon. E-mail addresses: awazinyong@uniba.cm, pnyong@fokabs.com (N.P. Awazi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect World Development Sustainability journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wds https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wds.2024.100156 Received 23 August 2022; Received in revised form 9 March 2024; Accepted 4 May 2024