Farmers’ perception of climate variability impacts on food crop production and their adaptation practices in Santa Sub-Division, Northwest Region, Cameroon

Food crop farmers in Santa Subdivision, just like in many agricultural areas, have greatly suffered the misery of climate variability. The Farmers’ perception of climate variability and the measures they are putting in place to cope with it are still concealed. This study therefore focused on examining how farmers perceive and adapt to climate variability in Santa Subdivision. With the mixed-methods approach, observations, semi-structured questionnaires, interviews, and Focus Group Discussions were used to collect data from 150 food crop farmers randomly selected from four communities. The study used both descriptive and inferential analysis techniques. The chi-square test with a P-value of 0.199 showed that farmers have significant knowledge and understanding of climate variability. Results showed that farmers have adopted adaptation practises such as irrigation, changing planting dates, mixed cropping, diversification of farming activities and the use of agrochemicals. These measures have significantly determined food crop outputs. However, certain factors such as education and training, financial constraints and land tenure system do affect the farmer’s ability to adapt. This study therefore recommends the use of sustainable agricultural practises, government subsidy, education and training amongst other measures to improve the adaptive capacity of farmers and to improve on agricultural activities in Santa.