Climate Variability and Urban Agricultural Activities in Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

Two terms that are enjoying increasing overwhelming global literature advocacy and discussion are urban farming and climate change. While there is increasing advocacy towards the relevance of urban agriculture for urban dwellers and how it translates into a mitigation strategy against climate change variability and adaptation to urban poverty, the effect of some urban farming activities and how it serves as a driver to climate change needs to be investigated. In most of the urban periphery where there is availability of a large expanse of land areas, farming activities are usually practised in form of settlement farm, livestock rearing, or plantation agriculture. The study based on quantitative and qualitative data from urban farmers in Ibadan argues that the location of urban farmlands is dependent on climatic factor such as access to land. The study identified that climate variability as reported by the urban farmers has resulted in the increased use of fertilizer for farming by urban farmers, and the main activity that is pro-climate change and variability is bush burning.