Gender-Based Analysis of the Effect of Climate Change on Income of Cassava Farmers in Delta State, Nigeria

Climate change is perhaps the most serious environmental threat to agriculture in Africa, because of its impact on pre-and post-harvest agricultural productivity thereby reducing income.This study examined the gender-based effects of climate change on the income of cassava farmers in Delta State, Nigeria.Using a multistage sampling technique, 360 cassava farmers were surveyed across six Local Government Areas in Delta State, Nigeria.Data were collected through structured questionnaires and analysed using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression.The results revealed that climate change significantly reduced cassava farmers' income, with climate-related challenges negatively impacting earnings ( = -1132.56,p = 0.001).However, adaptation strategies positively influenced income ( = 1923.45,p = 0.000), highlighting the importance of climate-smart farming practices.Gender issues were evident with the female farmers earning lesser income than the male farmers ( = -4789.12,p = 0.000) principally due to unfair access to land, credit and extension services.The interaction effect between climate change and gender was positive ( = 753.45,p = 0.008) showing that women used techniques like crop diversification to avoid loss.The interaction between adaptation strategies and gender revealed negative sign ( = -0.95,p = 0.011), implying that adaptation benefits were relatively less in the case of the female farmers.According to the findings, this study recommended that efforts should be made to increase gender-sensitive policies, increase credit accessibility, and improve on the use of extension services for climate change adaptation to increase yield in cassava production among farmers in Delta State.