International Journal of Multidisciplinary and Current Research ISSN: 2321-3124 Research Article Available at: http://ijmcr.com 409|Int. J. of Multidisciplinary and Current research, Vol.8 (May/June 2020) Climate Change and Transhumance Pastoralism in North-Central Nigeria Onah, O. (PhD)., Akarugwo, A. E., Okeke, N.A. and *Nwakile, T.C. Department of Agricultural Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka Received 08 March 2020, Accepted 09 May 2020, Available online 10 May 2020, Vol.8 (May/June2020 issue) Abstract The study investigated climate change and transhumance pastoralism in North Central Nigeria. Three research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The population for the study was all the pastoralists in North Central Nigeria. Snowball sampling technique was used to select 210 respondents consisting of 30 respondents each from Kogi, Kwara, Nassarawa, Benue, Niger, Plateau and the Federal Capital Territory. A structured questionnaire validated by three experts from Department of Agricultural Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka with a Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.88 was used for data collection from the respondents. Data from the research questions were analyzed with the used of percentages, frequencies counts, mean while data from the hypothesis was tested using Chi-square statistics at 0.05 level of significance. It was found out a majority of pastoralists in the area are male, in the age range of 31 – 40, married and had no formal education. The findings also revealed that there were eight impacts of climate change and three measures adopted by the pastoralists to mitigate the effects. Furthermore, the findings revealed that there was no significant relationship between the socioeconomic characteristics and measures adopted by pastoralists to mitigate climate change. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that; The government at all levels has to ensure movement of pastoralists in and out of any community has to be adequately monitored and conflict resolution agencies have to be established to serve as a mediator between pastoralists and the host community members Keywords: Climate change, Transhumance Pastoralism, North Central Nigeria Introduction Climate is the atmospheric weather condition of a place over a long period of time. Climate change refers to the rise in average surface temperature on earth. According to National Research Council (2010), climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns which lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years). The author further posited that climate change may refer to a change in average weather conditions, or in the time variation of weather around longer-term average conditions (i.e., more or fewer extreme weather events). Climatic extremes and seasonal fluctuations are indicators of climate change. Climate change is attributable directly or indirectly to human activities that change the composition of the global atmosphere. Climate change emanates from differences in climate observed over a comparable time period (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 1996 as cited by Ejiofor, Nwakile & Ali, 2017). It is obvious that climate change is an inherent attribute of climate, which is caused by both human activities (anthropogenic) and natural processes (bio-geographic). * Corresponding author’s ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3234-7573 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14741/ijmcr/v.8.3.9 Climate change is a major threat to the sustainability of livestock systems globally. Livestock refers to animals reared for meat, milk, hides and skin as well as being sources of income for farmers. Livestock play a major role in the agricultural sector in developing nations, and the livestock sector contributes 40% to the agricultural GDP (Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 2019). Global demand for foods of animal origin is growing and it is apparent that the livestock sector will need to expand. However, livestock are adversely affected by the detrimental effects of extreme weather. Climatic extremes and seasonal fluctuations in herbage quantity and quality will affect the well-being of livestock, and will lead to declines in production and reproduction efficiency (Sejian, 2013). Consequently, adaptation to, and mitigation of the detrimental effects of extreme climates is necessary in combating the climatic impact on livestock. The difficulty facing livestock is weather extremes, e.g. intense heat waves, floods and droughts. In addition to production losses, extreme events also result in livestock death (Gaughan & Cawsell-Smith, 2015). As a result, there is need adequate for livestock management.