Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of climate change awareness among the rural farmers of Northern Cross River state, investigate the gender role analyzes of some daily routine activities carried out by these rural farmers, ascertain the difference in workload burden of the impacts of climate change between men and women, identify the strategies adopted by these rural farmers to mitigate the effects of climate change in their agricultural activities and investigate the roles Environmental Education (EE) can play in helping the rural farmers to design and adopt sustainable adaptation and mitigation strategies to reduce or completely eradicate their vulnerability to climate change effects.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design adopted for this study is the cross-sectional survey method. Five research questions guided the study. Two sets of instruments were used for data collection, a sample of 1,258 respondents (0.1%) were selected for the study. The researchers personally administered the instruments and collected the same back, two instruments were not properly filled, so they were rejected.
Findings
The finding of the study revealed that rural farmers have some level of climate change awareness, which they got from radio, newspapers, awareness campaigns, flyers, billboards, among others. Six out of the nine strategies listed were adopted by the rural farmers to mitigate climate change effects among these rural farmers. There is a significant difference in gender workload burden between women and male in the area, the result is positively skewed toward women, implying that the burden of workload for women increased over those of men. The result also shows that EE can influence their attitude toward climate change through awareness creation, knowledge provisions and also encourage members participation in climate change effect mitigation, prevention and adaptation.
Research limitations/implications
With this result, EE can be used as a tool for the creation of knowledge, awareness, attitude and encourage the participation of these rural farmers toward mitigating and prevention climate change effects among these rural farmers. It was recommended among others that deliberate policies should be designed to make EE help create the needed awareness on climate change, beginning from the causes, effects and mitigation strategies among rural farmers in their community.
Practical implications
Already, most Environmental Educators have been trained, the government should design and formulate practical policies to use them as extension agent on climate change effort to go to these rural communities and create the needed awareness, knowledge, skills and attitude to help them combat climate change effects including trees and cover crops planting and also re-introducing the use of irrigation agriculture in these farming communities.
Social implications
With the creation of awareness, social groups and individuals can also make a social investment from these activities and also improve their social capitals, thereby reducing social burdens and improving their living conditions within the rural settings.
Originality/value
This research is an original research paper from the effort. the purpose is to assess the extent of climate change awareness level and how the effects of climate change increase or reduces the burden of gender workload among rural farmers and the strategies which can be used by these rural farmers to prevent, mitigate and adapt to climate change effects and the roles EE can play. This study has an original value in the sense that in the course of the study, the study hardly saw articles on these specific variables in whole research, hence the resolve to assess these variables.
Keywords
Citation
Eneji, C.-V.O., Onnoghen, N.U., Acha, J.O. and Diwa, J.B. (2021), "Climate change awareness, environmental education and gender role burdens among rural farmers of Northern Cross River State, Nigeria", International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Vol. 13 No. 4/5, pp. 397-415. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-06-2020-0070
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Chris-Valentine OGAR Eneji, Nkanu Usang Onnoghen, Joseph Odama Acha and Juliana Bebuo Diwa.
License
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
Introduction
Environmental Education (EE) is an education process designed to create the needed awareness, knowledge, skills and information about human activities and their impacts on the ever-changing environment. EE has also been variously defined as the education process that is aimed at creating the needed awareness, skills, knowledge, attitude and values toward environmental problems and creating in the learner the skills and willingness to work individually and collectively toward solving environmental problems and working to avoid the creation of new ones. From all perspectives, the cardinal duty of EE is to create awareness about already existing environmental problems and how to prevent the occurrence of new ones. EE can be defined as an organized effort to teach about how natural environment function and particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior in the ecosystems to live sustainably (Bhattarai et al., 2015; Eneji et al., 2017).
The term EE is often used to imply education within the school system, from primary to post-primary, this is narrowing the scope of the course, however it is sometimes used more broadly to include all effort to educate the public and other audience including print materials, websites, media campaigns, etc. EE is a process that allows individuals to explore environmental issues, engage in problem-solving and take action to improve the environment. As a result, individuals develop a deeper understanding of environmental issues and have the skills to make informed and responsible decisions. EE is a learning process that increases people’s knowledge and awareness about the environment and associated challenges and fosters attitude, motivations and commitments to make informed decisions and take responsible action (Ford Foundation, 2005, cited in Eneji et al., 2017). It also refers to organized efforts to teach about how the natural environment function and particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably (Gruenewald, 2004; Bangay and Blum, 2010; Benavot et al., 2019). The term is uniquely and slightly different from Environmental Science and Environmental Studies, while the former is concerned with identification, designing, collecting, analyzing and interpreting empirical data, the latter is concerned with using the analyzed and interpreted data to create the needed awareness as obtained by the former (Carr, 2013; Eneji et al., 2017).
The key components of EE include:
Awareness and sensitivity to the environment and environmental challenges.
Knowledge and understanding of the environment and the emotional challenges.
Attitude of concern for the environment and the motivation to improve or maintain environmental quality and standards.
Skills to identify and help in resolving environmental challenges.
Based on these components, EE seeks to pursue increased public awareness and knowledge about environmental issues, teach individuals and groups critical thinking to identify environmental issues, their causes, the effects they have on the environment and humans, their mitigation strategies or what can be done to solve the identified problem, it enhances individual’s problem-solving and decision-making skills. Hence, EE is holistic in nature because it does not advocate any particular viewpoint about nature (Chaudhury et al., 2012; Bentley et al., 2019).
Gender roles and the daily routine of most rural households are influenced by the kind of livelihood activities engaged by these rural populaces. The burden of food production from rural agrarian activities as carried out by women has become even more pronounced in recent times, as their statutory roles are caregivers and mothers of the household. From prehistoric times, the women folks have been seen as mothers who are solely saddled with the duty of providing for the households, these roles are beginning to become compounded daily because of the increased burden inflicted on them by the changing climatic conditions under which they carry out their daily livelihoods activities in their agrarian rural societies (Binswanger-Mkhizer and D’Souza, 2012; Carr and Thompson, 2014).
Scholars have posited that both male and female are engaged in the agricultural production process at one point or the other, the men clear the thick forest land or bushland and also proceed to till the mounds for the planting of food crops, their activities end here, while the women take over from weeding the farms, tending the crops till the crops are mature for harvesting. During the harvesting process, the men do the actual harvesting for some crops, while the women carry the harvested crops home, prepare them for storage and do the actual storage themselves. Their duties do not stop here. They do the harvesting of fuelwood including the cooking of food for the family, washing and doing of the used dishes, fetching of water, bathing the younger ones, etc. These are all activities, which are the daily routine of most rural women (FAO, 2011; Partoev, 2012; Panda and Singh, 2016; Pandey et al., 2018).
Climate change is the effect, which changing climatic conditions have brought on the environment and its resources, to the extent that these effects have influenced so many human activities negatively. The causes of global climate change include the incomplete combustion of fossil fuel and gasoline from industrial chimneys and exhaust pipes, resulting in the release of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxides, methane emission from animal dungs, agricultural chemicals and pesticides and waste garbage, arctic sea beds and paddy rice field, deforestation especially from tropical wood for agriculture, pulp and farmlands; increased use of agricultural chemicals especially pesticides and other agrochemicals, bush burning among others (Padmanabhan, 2011).
Climatic conditions are measured in terms of what is called climate or weather elements, these include temperature, air pressure, wind direction and strength, humidity and the amount of precipitation (rainfall). These elements are further influenced by the factors of latitude, altitude, continentality or continental effects, mountain range orientation toward prevailing winds and ocean current among others (Carr and Thompson, 2014; Opiyo et al., 2015).
Climate change awareness, on the other hand, has to do with all the knowledge, skills, value, attitude and belief about the causes, effects and mitigation strategies among the rural populace about climate change. Climate change awareness imbues in the learner or possessor the needed information about the concept of climate change, some human activities that cause climate change, their effects and some level of knowledge about the mitigation of climate change effects.
The burden of climate change effects on the environment cannot be overemphasized. These effects have variously been listed to include salinization of freshwater, saltwater intrusion, rise in seas level as a result of the melting of ice at the polar regions, flooding, low or excess rainfall, drought and desert encroachment, increased ambient temperatures, greenhouse gases, global crop failures and food insecurities. Studies have shown that one of the major causes of crop failure and food insecurity is the shortage in the amount of precipitation resulting in widespread desertification with its attendant effects (Mcdowell and Hess, 2012; Berger et al., 2015). Most studies further opined that climate change is expected to have a very severe impact on water supplies and food productivities. These shortages would most likely threaten food production and availability, reduce sanitation and hinder economic development and damage to the ecosystems, causing swings between floods and droughts (Carr and Thompson, 2014; Opiyo et al., 2015).
Some studies suggested that the rising temperatures might lead to the extinction of more than a million species, this is worrisome because man’s existence on the planet is tied to the presence of the diverse species and population of plants and animals in the ecosystems. A significant number of species have gone extinct already or are under threat as a result of the global climate change occasioned by rising temperatures and dwindling rainfalls (Manandhar et al., 2011; McDowell et al., 2013; Berger et al., 2015).
Studies have shown that in most rural communities, gender role analysis shows a negatively skewed gender role toward the womenfolk (Wilk et al., 2013; Macchi et al., 2015). According to Abott (1978) cited in Eneji et al. (2017), the womenfolk are usually likened to the ever-giving mother earth, who is always giving in terms of giving lives to children, feeding the family, providing water for the family, fetching the firewood, cooking the meals, washing the dishes, weeding the farm and tending the crops to produce food, washing the family clothes, even late in the nights after a tedious days work in the farms, she works late into the night in preparation for the following day. Even when the children and the husbands are not feeling too well, they are the ones who take care of their health, boil the herbs and administer them to the sick person, they still stay with the sick person in the herbal homes or hospital. Due to drought and the late arrival of rains, the women still mulch the mounds to avoid high temperatures from burning the yams seedlings in the mounds (Busch and Roman, 2017; Bieler et al., 2018).
The men on the other hand, only clear the farms, till them, maybe plant only yams and stake them, thereafter, their jobs are over until harvest time. Only in rare cases would they go back to add artificial manure to the farm. They may stay at home all day, but the women would be expected by custom to come back from the farms late and cook the family meal, including fetching of fuelwood and water for the family use (Djoudi and Brockhaus, 2011; Dominelli, 2013; Pandey et al., 2016).
Climate change awareness is an education process aimed at helping people to understand and address the global, regional and local impacts of global warming with its attendant effects, increasing climate change literacy among young and adult population, encourage changes in their attitudes and behavior and also helping the populace to adapt to climate change-related problems.
A lot of studies have shown that there is an urgent need to sensitize or create the needed awareness among the populace about the devastating effects of climate change (Akerlof et al., 2010; Pandve et al., 2011; Bhardwaj and Yadav, 2015; Ravera et al., 2016). The approaches and strategies to be adopted for this awareness creation and sensitization is dependent on the perceived susceptibility to threats and the extent of the climate change impacts on the people (Below et al., 2012). This is so much so that people’s adaptability has become a function of the knowledge and information at their disposal, hence the need for climate change awareness for the rural populace. Looking at these studies, there is a life wire running across all their postulations and research outcomes, the urgent need to address issues of climate change awareness, adaptation, vulnerability and developing coping strategies among the rural farmers like their urban counterpart must be made paramount, (Bellon et al., 2011; Busch et al., 2019). Most often, the problems of climate change impacts are mostly perceived and felt in rural communities, where their livelihoods are mostly dependent on the environment.
Taking a closer look at the institutional and social perspectives of the extent of vulnerability and the perceived adaptation strategies people adapt to climate change, there has been the increasing need for scholars to address these issues (Behrman et al., 2014), especially when it comes to understanding the issue of social differentiation in terms of gender-based factors such as gender equality, equity and gender-based power models (Barnett and O’Neill, 2010). There is, however, some complexities of factors that determines and shapes the divergent contexts under which vulnerability and adaptability, especially the capacity to adapt and pose different response to mitigation strategies to these climate change effect, most of these adaptive strategies are yet to be fully explored and exploited (Badola et al., 2014). Most scholars have understood and recognized that such determining factors are gender-biased, orchestrated by socio-cultural, traditional, institutional and economic-based structures and processes, which are always detrimental to the women folks (Sujakhu et al., 2016; Tembo and Tadesse, 2018). It is worthy to state that a large number of scholars and their literature on gender-based issues on climate change are perceived differently between men and women (Lorenzoni and Pidgeon, 2006; Akerlof et al., 2010; Rishi et al., 2011; Ravera et al., 2016), their experiences and their perception of climate change are seen from the prism of gender-based perspective, (Pandve et al., 2011), even at this, the women folks have been found to be most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in our agrarian societies. This is because they are most dependent on the natural environment and their resources, in this sense, any harm to the environment, is felt mostly by the women.
In a cross-sectional study to assess the level of awareness regarding climate change in urban communities in the urban field practice area of Pune city, Maharastra state of India, Pandve et al. (2011), with the purpose to assess their climate change awareness, major causes of climate change are from human activities, their sources of climate change awareness, their knowledge of United Nations Frameworks on Climate Change (UNFCC), Kyoto Protocol and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), water-related issues and physical hazards related to human health from climate change among others. Data collected and analyzed show that global climate change is majorly due to human activities, these are based on personal experiences of the respondents. The respondents observed that the easiest source of information was the television.
It was also found that there is a poor level of awareness about the purpose of the UNFCC, IPCC and the Kyoto Protocol, most respondents observed that one of the major causes of global climate change is deforestation for whatever reason. Respondents observed that they have observed water-related issues due to climate change, other respondents posited that there are other physical hazards directly felt from extreme weather events, which have very potential health impacts on both humans and the environment as a result of climate change. These respondents further posited that lifestyle changes can be a significant way of addressing the climate change trend. When climate change occurs, the burden and volume of work done in the rural communities are increased to protect crops, household livelihoods and to assuage harsh environmental conditions. During these periods, whose daily chores burden increases most, and how have these rural populaces mitigated these harsh environmental trends?
Granted that climate change has serious impacts on rural agricultural activities, does it add additional burden to these rural farmers? Which group of people do these impacts affect most? What role can their extent of climate change awareness play in identifying their local strength and methodology for cushioning their vulnerability and adaptability to climate change effects? What roles can EE play in their decision-making to enhance the adoption of environmentally friendly strategies to cushion the impacts of climate change to enhance bounty productivity? It is on this premise that this study sought to dissect the tripod relationship between climate change awareness, EE and gender role analysis burden on the agrarian society of Northern Cross River State, Nigeria.
The following research questions were posed to guide the study:
What extent of climate change awareness do the rural farmers of Northern Cross River state have?
What is the gender role analyzes of some daily routine activities carried out by these rural farmers?
What is the difference in the workload burden of the impacts of climate change between men and women?
What are the strategies adopted by these rural farmers to mitigate the effects of climate change in their agricultural activities?
What roles can EE play in helping the rural farmers to design and adopt sustainable adaptation and mitigation strategies to reduce or completely eradicate their vulnerability to climate change effects?
Materials and design (methodology)
Using a cross-sectional survey method, a sample of 0.1% of the entire population of the study area was selected from a combined population of 1,258, 966 persons, who are predominantly farmers, civil servants, Environmental Educators, Agricultural Science teachers, civil servants, Environmental Health workers, staffs of conservation organizations and students from the five local government areas of Bekwarra, Ogoja, Yala, Obudu and Obanliku., all in Cross River State. Using the multi-stage sampling technique, a sample of 1,258 respondents, comprising both female and female was selected. The selection process is such that husbands and wives were selected from each compound, in households where male or female are found as widows or widowers, they are paired for the study. In all, a gender-disaggregated sample of 629 pairs was selected for the study. Data was generated for the study using two sets of instruments: a structured questionnaire titled extent of climate change awareness and the roles of EE in climate change prevention, mitigation and adaptation questionnaire; the second instrument is the gender roles analysis and schedule activity burden checklist. The instruments were personally administered by the researchers in the five LGAs and the same collected, seven respondents did not complete their instrument properly, so there were rejected, only 1,251 instruments were coded and analyzed for the study. Simple percentage, independent t-test, pie charts, line graphs and tables were used to analyze and present results from the analysis.
Results and discussion
What extent of climate change awareness do the rural farmers of Northern Cross River state have?
From the result of the data analyzed, 136 respondents representing 11%, have very much awareness about climate change, 225 respondents representing 18%, have high awareness about climate change, causes and effects, 250 respondents (20%) ticked that they have average awareness about climate change, 225 respondents, representing 18% said they have a very minimal level of climate change awareness, while 413 respondents (33%) said they have no awareness or knowledge about climate change. Based on these results, it is found that a substantial number of respondents have some extent of climate change awareness among the rural farmers in the Northern Cross River State.
Arising from the result on the pie chart in Figure 1 above, it is pertinent to inform that most of the rural farmers have little to a high level of climate change awareness. A substantial number of these farmers do not have any formal awareness about climate change. Concerned about their sources of the climate change awareness among these rural farmers, it was discovered that some got their awareness through radio, television, handbills and information bulletins, others read through newspapers and news magazines, while some got their information through public awareness created by some non-governmental organizations.
This result is a confirmation of Pandve et al. (2011), who in their study found that in most rural communities, the level of climate change awareness like every other environmental awareness is dependent on the people’s exposure to all programs or activities geared toward creating the awareness. Most studies found a significant relationship between climate change awareness and the processes through which they use to acquire such knowledge. Most authors still observed that the extent of climate change awareness most farmers have in the rural communities is through experiential knowledge, where weather elements change in terms of fluctuation trends (Akerlof et al., 2010; Rishi et al., 2011; Opiyo et al., 2015).
The climate change awareness level of older farmers was gained through observation of weather elements: a shortage of rainfall or excess of precipitation, prolonged drought regime, increased temperature, excess river water overflow (flooding), crop failure due to changing environmental conditions. The finding of this study is in line with those of Badola et al. (2014), Behrman et al. (2014); Ravera et al. (2016), who found that most rural farmers are not ignorant of the presence of climate change in their communities, crop failures, shortage in rainfall, increased temperature, erosion, crop pest and other heat-related conditions are all pointers to climate change situations. These farmers have observed the present weather conditions to be different from what they use to see when they were younger.
While most farmers claimed to have this awareness through experience, others became aware of climate change through mass media, public enlightenment campaigns, posters, billboards, through town hall meetings, age-grade meetings and through the activities of some non-governmental organizations (Tambo and Abdoulaye, 2013; Tamang et al., 2014; Eneji et al., 2017). This result has revealed that most of the rural farmers studied have a very reasonable level of climate change awareness, while some about 50% of the farmers lack the basic knowledge of what causes climate change, most of these farmers do not know that negative and unsustainable farming activities and practices influenced the acceleration of global climate change:
What is the gender role analyzes of some daily routine activities carried out by these rural farmers?
Figure 2 shows the gender role analysis of farmers in Northern Cross River State where the study is carried out. The respondent’s opinion suggests that from the 23 items listed in Figure 2, the women do more of the activities than men. From Figure 2, the scores of the gender that performs each of the activities listed are also attached to the figure depicting whose duty it is to perform that activity. Table 1 also brought out the respondent’s raw scores and the percentage of the activities performed by each group of people between men and women. In total, 454 respondents, representing 36.3% said that men perform most of the duties, while 797 respondents, representing 63.7% ticked that women perform most of the daily activities in the community than men. From the result, it is evident that most of the daily activities including household chores are done by women in the study area.
Looking at the result of the community activity and gender-disaggregated roles survey as presented on Figure 2, it shows that out of the 23 items listed, men scored highest in the clearing of farmlands (850, 68%), tilling of mounds (1,087, 87%), planting of yams (963,77%), staking of farms (700, 56%), spending of incomes generated from the sales of farms produce (1,050, 84%), collection of the bride price for daughters married (1,213, 97%) and taking of family decisions (1,200, 96%). While the women on the other hand scored highest on fetching of water for family use (938, 75%), fetching of fuelwood (1,100, 88%), cooking of family meal (1,213, 97%), planting of other crops (825,66%), weeding of farms (1,100, 88%), mulching of mounds (1,125, 90%), tending of farms (963, 77%), bathing of children (1,225, 98%), breastfeeding of children (1,225, 98%), taking care of the sick (825, 66%), compound sanitation (1,113, 89%), cooking of herbs for the sick, (1,138, 91%), training of children (813, 65%), carrying of harvested crops home from the farms (1,075, 86%), selling of crops in the markets (1,075, 86%) and other chores like watering farm crops, etc (1,038, 83%).
Out of the 23 activities listed as daily routine chores in the community, men perform 7 out of the 23, while women perform 16 out of the 23 activities listed. From this preliminary data, women are mostly saddled with duties regarding their household daily activities than their male counterparts.
The result of this study is a confirmation of the earlier findings of Bellon et al. (2011), Badola et al. (2014); Behrman et al. (2014) whose results found that using gender lens scope, women perform more activities in the agrarian communities than men. These authors further found that women are likened to the ever-giving earth, so they are overstressed beyond the limit to do almost all the agricultural activities. This overloaded or overburdened activity is premised on the conviction traditionally; women are married by men and should be made to do all the household chores. This traditional conviction has always been assessed by gender scholars as gender inequity and gender-based stereotype, where men are generally seen to be the head of the house and the womenfolk as slaves or at best laborers. This result is a confirmation of the finding of Panta and Thapa (2018), who found that in gender-based roles analyzes, women have been found to be the major drivers of every agricultural enterprise, after the clearing, preparing, tilling of mounds and planting of crops like yam, the staking is occasionally done by men, but after tilling the mounds or beds for other crops, women are responsible for the planting of the crops, they do the mulching and weeding, where drought exists, they water the crops through either local irrigation or the use of sprinklers where small generators can be connected to water or irrigate crops. They engage in harvesting, processing, storage and probable sales of the farm produce, but when it comes to spending proceeds from the sales of farm crops, the men handle this aspect.
This same position has been canvassed by Padmanabhan (2011) that traditionally, women are assigned the responsibilities of producing the children and also feeding the family, outside working long hours in the field, they must come back to cook the family meal and also care for the children such as bathing them, feeding them and also making sure the men of the house also feed. Most often, the women also fetch water for the men to the bath. Women bear the burden of doing extra jobs based on their role analysis as shown in Figure 2 and Table 1. Based on this result, it can be concluded that despite the gender-disaggregated roles analyzes, the women had been identified as having a greater workload in every agricultural setting than the men. This position has come to confirmed the finding of Mcdowell et al. (2013), Panda and Singh (2016); Pandey et al. (2018):
What is the difference in the workload burden of the impacts of climate change between men and women?
This question sought to examine if there is any significant difference between men and women in their burden of work schedule in rural communities as a result of climate change effects on agriculture? To answer this question, the mean, standard deviation and standard error of the mean were computed to identify if there are any differences in the workload between men and women in the agrarian society of Cross River State. The Independent sample t-test was then applied to compare the group means between men and women. The result is as presented in Table 2.
From Table 2, the p-values (0.000) associated with the computed t-values 3.988, for the mean difference between men and women, with a critical value of 1.93 and a df of 1,249, the result shows a mean p-value of 3.988, which is greater than the critical value of 1.93. As the calculated p-value of 3.988 is greater than the critical table value of 1.93, there is a significant difference between the burden of works done by men and women during climate change effects. The implication of this result is that during the period where climate change effects are mostly felt, to mitigate the effects, there is a significant increase in the burden of work done between women and men in the agrarian communities of Cross River State.
From Figure 2, the result indicates that more work needs to be done, the result shows a significant difference in the mean score between men and women in their activities to mitigate the effect of climate change.
To further identify the direction of this increased burden, a simple percentage analysis was carried out again, the result shows that 986 respondents representing 78.8% ticked that women have a considerable increase in the burden of the work they do, especially to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change during their farming seasons and after that period than the men. While 265 respondents representing 21.2% said the direction of increased burden is more on the men than the women. Based on the result on Table 1 and Figure 2, it is observed that women have more responsibilities than the male folk, hence any significant increase in the jobs to be done in the community will definitely increase their burden of activities, hence extra time and energy would be needed to meet these activities by the womenfolk. The implication, therefore, is that women would have a more increased workload burden than men.
The result here shows gender-disaggregated information pertaining to work schedule done by men and women, respectively, in the rural agrarian society of Northern Cross River State. Men do about one-third of the activities in their communities, whereas women do two-third of the activities. This is shown on the activities that are mostly performed during climate change effects to address issues of shortage or delayed rains, increased temperature, crop failure and crop pest infestation. Authors such as Arora-Jonsson (2011); Alston and Whittenbury (2012); Carr and Thompson (2014) all observed that women fetch water for both domestic and agricultural activities like during the spraying of insecticides and other agrochemicals, they weed the grasses, they mulch the farms and also harvest and carry crops from the farms to the house and even to the markets for sales. The women also plant cover crops such as potatoes, groundnuts, cowpea, legumes, long beans, mucuna and hedgerows among others to check flooding, erosion (wind and water), reduce temperatures and carbon dioxides from accumulating in the atmosphere. All these are activities that are geared toward mitigating the effects of climate change.
Furthermore, women also engage in the fetching of firewoods (fuelwoods), instead of using power chain saw like the men to deforest or log trees that should act as a carbon sink (carbon sequestration) and windbreakers, the women-only harvest dead branches from wood or those sawn by men during their logging operations, these are latent ways of conserving our forest woods and improving our climatic conditions through the reduction of temperature intensity and carbon accumulations. This result further buttressed those of Carr (2011), Arora-Jonsson (2011); Bee et al. (2013), who found a significant difference in the burden of work women do during climate change effects in the rural farming communities. Their observation was anchored on the fact that women are an integral part of every domestic and farming activity in every rural community in Africa and the world over.
This finding has come to further strengthen the position of Chant (2010), who found that most women in the rural agrarian sector are from a poor background, and because poverty is gendered, women must struggle to meet their daily requirement, so they must put in their best to try every activity that can improve their well-being, hence their increased workload. Due to the effects of global climate change, women must do all within their powers to improve their crop production and abate crop failure to fight food insecurity, to do this, women engaged themselves in mitigation activities such as mulching of mounds and beds, planting of cover crops and legumes, potatoes, cowpea, planting of home garden and hedgerows, live sticks, watering of farms and gardens and engagement in market gardening among others:
What are the strategies adopted by these rural farmers to mitigate the effects of climate change in their agricultural activities?
To answer this questions on the strategies adopted to mitigate climate change effects by these rural farmers, nine strategies were listed, the strategies include the planting of cover crops to reduce wind and soil erosion, mulching of mounds and beds to retain moisture and reduce evaporation of moisture from the soil, planting of crops after the on-sets of the rains, planting of trees and hedgerows, use of organic farmyard manure/compost of green vegetables instead of inorganic fertilizers, clearing of the perimeter around the farms to avoid unprescribed bush fire, clearing of farmlands and allowing the grasses to decay instead of burning them and channeling of water flow into farmland and irrigation by manual watering.
Responding to how each of these strategies has been used by these rural farmers, respondent’s opinion showed on Table 3 and Figure 3 indicates that 552 respondents representing 44.1% ticked that the nine listed strategies have been highly used by them, 319 respondents (25.5%) ticked that they often use the nine listed strategies, 106 (8.5%), respondents said they barely used the nine listed strategies, 274 (21.9%) respondents said they do not use any of the listed strategies.
Taking a further critical look at the strategies listed, 819 respondents (65.5%) observed that planting of cover crops, mulching, watering of crops, planting of crops after the onset of rains and the use of organic farmyard manure seem to have the widest acceptability and applicability, while 432 respondents, (34.5%) observed that planting of hedgerow, clearing of perimeters around the farms, planting of trees and channeling of water flow into farmland seems to have very poor recognition and rarely practiced as strategies for mitigating climate change effects in the rural agrarian communities of Northern Cross River State, Nigeria.
This is another confirmation of the result obtained by Bee et al. (2013), who listed four strategies adopted by rural farmers based on their experience to mitigate climate change to include planning of hedgerow, trees and live sticks around the houses to prevent and reduce wind and rain storm, channeling of stream flows through channels to farmlands in swampy areas, clearing of perimeters around farmlands and reduction in the use of prescribed bush fire. Though these were practices used in the area where these authors carried out their study.
Carr and Thompson (2013) found a similar result when they listed climate change awareness creation, engagement of local farmers in strategies that can reduce climate change effects among others. The findings here show that there are some levels of climate change awareness among the rural farmers of Northern Cross River State, this has also influenced their perception of climate change as affecting their agricultural productivities, but with the introduction and practice of these strategies, some reprieve had come to the ways of these rural farmers:
What roles can EE play in helping the rural farmers to design and adopt sustainable adaptation and mitigation strategies to reduce or completely eradicate their vulnerability to climate change effects?
Based on the objectives of EE, five key questions were set on the five key objectives to include:
Creating Environmental Awareness to help all social groups and individuals to acquire the awareness needed and the sensitivity to solve existing environmental problems while preventing the occurrence of new ones.
Knowledge of EE to help social groups and individuals to gain varieties of knowledge and experience to acquire a basic understanding of the environment and its associated problems.
Attitude to help individual and social groups acquire a set of values and feelings of concern for the environment and the motivation for actively participating in environmental improvement and protection.
Skills needed to help social groups and individuals acquire skills to identify and solve environmental problems, and.
Participation to provide social groups and individuals with the opportunity to be actively involved at all levels in working toward the resolution of environmental problems.
The result of a simple percentage analysis to answer this question is presented in Table 4.
Based on data generated using the instrument from the field as shown on Table 3; 857 respondents (68.5%) ticked that it is very possible for EE to provide the needed awareness, provide the knowledge, create the needed attitude, provide the skills and the encourage the participation of both social groups and individuals in adopting sustainable strategies needed to mitigate climate change effects on agricultural activities and other forms of rural livelihoods. In total, 394 respondents representing 31.5% also stated that it is possible EE can create awareness, provide the knowledge, skills, attitude and encourage the participation of individuals and groups in the mitigation of climate change effects through the local strategies so identified on Table 2 above.
In total, 67 respondents (5.3%) said that it is impossible for EE to create awareness, knowledge, attitude, skills and the capacity for people to participate in strategizing to mitigate the effects of climate change on rural agriculture. While, another 66 respondents, representing 5.2% ticked that they undecided whether EE can provide the needed awareness, create the knowledge and attitude, provide the skills and encourage the participation of rural farmers in mitigating the effects of climate change on rural agricultural activities in Cross River State. From this result, and the data analyzed, it is important to conclude that EE can create the needed awareness, knowledge, attitude, skills and the participation of individual or social groups in strategizing and implementing such strategies as listed in the study to mitigate the effects of climate change in agriculture in the rural Cross River State, Nigeria.
Taking a closer look at the result, nearly all the respondents, 1,120 respondents (89.5%) ticked that EE can play very enormous roles in creating the needed awareness, knowledge, attitude, skills and the capacity to enable individuals and social groups to participate in the implementation of various strategies for mitigating climate change effects on agriculture in the rural agrarian societies of Cross River State, Nigeria. This finding that climate change education is very crucial in combating global climate change is derived from the core objectives of EE. EE will provide a fulcrum through which the tenets of awareness creation in terms of prevention, mitigation and adaptation strategies can be delivered to the rural farmers in their rural setting. Education is knowledge, knowledge to bring or map out strategies to combat the effects of global climate change in agriculture within the rural setting. The finding of this study is in line with those of Akerlof et al. (2011); Adger et al. (2013) and Alan (2019), who found that education in whatever form be it climate change education or EE brings about the inculcation of the right type of awareness, knowledge, ideas, skills, attitude, values and the capacity to change the perception of the rural farmers and give them the push to engage in different activities to prevent or mitigate climate change and in extreme conditions or situations, the ability to adapt to the changing climatic conditions.
Anderson (2010) found that EE has the capacity to influence people’s knowledge to actively participate in carrying out strategies design to mitigate or prevent an environmental crisis, these crises could be climate change, flooding, drought, emergency environmental disaster, etc. Anderson (2012), Armstrong et al. (2018) also found a similar result, that EE imbues in the learners (in this case rural farmers) who are both individuals and social groups the skills needed to identify climate change situation, how to prevent their occurrence by mitigating their effects and adapting to the situation, by developing resistivity and resilience to climate change effects on their agricultural productivities and well-being.
This research was carried out to ascertain the extent of climate change awareness, the effects of global climate change on the burden of workload on gender role analysis and what roles EE can play in preventing, mitigating and adapting to the effects of these climate change. Based on the result of this study and the finding therefrom, most rural farmers in the Northern parts of Cross River State have some reasonable level of climate change awareness, based on this awareness levels, the people are aware of the effects of climate change and are aware that climate change increases the burden of gender roles in the agrarian society. Therefore, in attempting to prevent, mitigate and adapt to climate change effects on agricultural productivity, EE can imbue in the individual and social groups the skills, knowledge, awareness, attitudes and the capability to participate actively in mitigating climate change effect in the agrarian communities of Northern Cross River State, Nigeria. The purpose for which this research was carried out has been achieved and the gap so identified has been also sufficiently filled.
Conclusion
The research examined the extent of climate change awareness among rural farmers, identify how the effects of climate change increases or reduces the burden of gender roles on both men and women and what roles can EE play in preventing, mitigating and adapting to climate change effects and conditions of Northern Cross River State, Nigeria. After a rigorous analysis of data, it was observed that the rural farmers have average knowledge of the effects of climate change based on the variations in weather conditions and the effects which it has on their agricultural activities and productivity from their experience over the years. The rural farmers identified that when climate change effects are being experienced, local farmers struggle to mitigate the effects of climate change using their local strategies and when this happens, the gender role burden on women increases due to the additional workload added to their original schedules. This increase comes in form of mulching of farms, watering of crops (manual irrigation), planting of cover crops, using compost manure to improve crop yield among others. To be able to change attitude, get more knowledge, skills, awareness and to effectively participate in mitigating, preventing or adapting to the climate change conditions, EE will be handy to perform these roles. Based on the finding of this study, the local farmers under study have an average level of climate change awareness, they have identified some local strategies they use in mitigating and preventing climate change conditions in the rural communities, when these happen, the burden of workload for the women increases more than those of the men. To be able to mitigate this situation, EE can provide the awareness, knowledge, skills, attitude and the ability to participate in designing and carrying out mitigation activities in the agrarian society of Northern Cross River State, Nigeria.
Recommendations for policy directions
Arising from these research findings, the following recommendations were made:
There should be occasional climate change awareness campaigns and training for these rural farmers to improve their mitigation and adaptation strategies.
As the burden of workload for the women will increase more than those of men, men should assist in the best way they can to ameliorate the burden of workload on the women.
EE both formal and non-formal including Environmental adult education should be introduced and used to teach social groups the strategies that best suit the local conditions for climate change mitigation.
Grants should be given to local farmers to enable them to buy high yielding crop species (improved varieties) and other farm inputs and tools like a sprinkler irrigation system.
Farmers should be encouraged to patronize compost or organic manure instead of inorganic manure.
Farmers should be encouraged to form cooperative societies where soft loans can be given to them as a group to purchase some farm implements that can help reduce the burden of workload on them.
Farmers should be encouraged to plant hedgerow, live stick fencing, clearing of the perimeter around farmlands to discourage bush burning or wildfire.
Government should formulate policies to safeguard food security, by providing water schemes for poor farmers with the hose to help them get water to their farms within a certain or specified cluster.
Figures
Community daily household activities schedule based on gender role analysis in Northern Cross River state (n = 5,001)
| Respondent’s opinion on gender roles | Male respondents | Women respondents | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S/no. | Community activities | Score | (%) | Score | (%) |
| 1 | Fetching of water | 313 | 25 | 938 | 75 |
| 2 | Fetching of fuelwood | 150 | 12 | 1,100 | 88 |
| 3 | Cooking of food | 38 | 3 | 1,213 | 97 |
| 4 | Clearing of farms | 850 | 68 | 400 | 32 |
| 5 | Tilling of mounds | 1,088 | 87 | 163 | 13 |
| 6 | Planting of yams | 963 | 77 | 288 | 23 |
| 7 | Planting of other crops | 425 | 34 | 825 | 66 |
| 8 | Weeding of farms | 150 | 12 | 1,100 | 88 |
| 9 | Mulching of mounds | 125 | 10 | 1,125 | 90 |
| 10 | Staking of farms | 700 | 56 | 550 | 44 |
| 11 | Tending of farms | 288 | 23 | 963 | 77 |
| 12 | Bathing of children | 213 | 17 | 1,038 | 83 |
| 13 | Breastfeeding children | 25 | 2 | 1,225 | 98 |
| 14 | Taking care of the sick | 425 | 34 | 825 | 66 |
| 15 | Compound sanitation | 138 | 11 | 1,113 | 89 |
| 16 | Cooking of herbs | 113 | 9 | 1,138 | 91 |
| 17 | Training of children | 438 | 35 | 813 | 65 |
| 18 | Carrying of harvested crop home | 175 | 14 | 1,075 | 86 |
| 19 | Selling of food crops in the markets | 163 | 13 | 1,088 | 87 |
| 20 | Spending of family money | 1,050 | 84 | 200 | 16 |
| 21 | Collection of children bride price | 1,213 | 97 | 38 | 3 |
| 22 | Taking of family decision | 1,200 | 96 | 50 | 4 |
| 23 | Others | 213 | 17 | 1,038 | 83 |
| Total | 28,762 | 455 (10,456) | 36.3 | 796(18,306) | 63.7 |
Independent t-test analysis of differences in the increased burden on gender roles in the agrarian communities, (n – 1,251)
| Increased burden of gender roles in the community |
Mean | SD | Std error | Mean difference | t-value | p-value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 25.50 | 3.902 | 0.690 | 2.606 | 3.988* | 0.000 |
| Female | 23.13 | 3.679 | 0.650 | 0.787 |
*Significant at 0.05 level, crit. Value = 1.93, p < 0.05, df = 1249
Some strategies for mitigating climate change in the rural communities of CRS
| S/no. | Some strategies to mitigate climate change | Response options | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Highly used | Often used | Barely used | Not used | ||
| 1 | Planting of crops after the on-sets of rains | 380 | 578 | 223 | 70 |
| 2 | Mulching of mounds and beds | 756 | 455 | 40 | – |
| 3 | Planting of cover crops | 741 | 382 | 113 | 15 |
| 4 | Planting of trees and hedgerows | 385 | 191 | 60 | 615 |
| 5 | Watering of farms/irrigation | 720 | 354 | 112 | 65 |
| 6 | Use of organic farmyard manure/compost from green vegetables for manure instead of inorganic fertilizer | 362 | 113 | 103 | 673 |
| 7 | Clearing of perimeters around farmlands to reduce bush-fire | 313 | 195 | 58 | 685 |
| 8 | Clearing of farms land and allowing the grasses to decay instead of burning | 802 | 221 | 140 | 88 |
| 9 | Channeling water flow into farmlands | 496 | 389 | 113 | 253 |
| Total 11,259 | 4,955 | 2,878 | 962 | 2,464 | |
| 551 | 320 | 107 | 273 | ||
| 44.0 | 25.6 | 8.5 | 21.9 | ||
Respondent’s opinion on the roles of EE in climate change mitigation in the rural communities of Cross River state
| S/no. | Objectives of EE | VP | P | IP | UD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Providing the awareness creation about the causes and effects of climate change on agriculture and livelihoods | 825 | 215 | 133 | 78 |
| 2 | Providing knowledge about the effects of climate change on agriculture and crop production | 719 | 334 | 96 | 102 |
| 3 | Bring about the attitude to identify the negative effects of climate change on agricultural activities and how to solve them | 862 | 323 | 30 | 36 |
| 4 | Providing the skills needed to identify different strategies to mitigate climate change effects on agriculture and general livelihoods | 444 | 645 | 74 | 88 |
| 5 | Providing the needed skills and attitude to individually and collectively participate in the implementation of activities (strategies) to mitigate climate change effects on agriculture and other forms of livelihoods in the rural communities in Cross River state | 775 | 452 | – | 24 |
| Total scores (6,255) | 3,625 | 1,969 | 333 | 328 | |
| Individual respondents, (1,251) | 724 | 394 | 67 | 66 | |
| Percentage (100%) | 57.9 | 31.6 | 5.3 | 5.2 |
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