Assessing the Effects of Climate Variability on Maize Yield in the Municipality of Dschang—Cameroon.

Nzali, Coretta T., Abdelbaki, Chérifa and Kumar, Navneet, (2024). Assessing the Effects of Climate Variability on Maize Yield in the Municipality of Dschang—Cameroon.. Land, 13(9), n/a-n/a

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  • Sub-type Journal article
    Author Nzali, Coretta T.
    Abdelbaki, Chérifa
    Kumar, Navneet
    Title Assessing the Effects of Climate Variability on Maize Yield in the Municipality of Dschang—Cameroon.
    Appearing in Land
    Volume 13
    Issue No. 9
    Publication Date 2024-08-25
    Place of Publication Basel
    Publisher MDPI
    Start page n/a
    End page n/a
    Language eng
    Abstract Evidence-based research on the effects of rainfall, temperature, and relative humidity variability on maize yield is essential for understanding the climate dynamics of, and paving the way for informed adaptive solutions to future potential negative impacts in, Dschang-Cameroon. This study employed the non-parametric Mann–Kendall and Sen’s slope method to detect trends in climate variables and maize yield in the period between 1990 to 2018. Pearson correlation and multilinear regression (MLR) analyses were also used to establish the linear relationship between climate variables and maize yield, and to explore the behavior of the response variable (maize yield) with the predictor variables (climatic variables), respectively. In addition, perceptions of climate variability and its impact on maize yield from a hundred farmers were collected through a questionnaire and analyzed in SPSS. Twenty key informants’ interviews (KII) were conducted using a semi-structured interview and analyzed by thematic analysis. The results showed that the minimum temperature exhibited a decreasing trend at a rate of 0.039 °C per annum, whereas relative humidity had an increasing trend of 0.25% per annum with statistical significance at p = 0.001. In addition, a decreasing trend of rainfall, at a rate of 4.94 mm per annum, was observed; however, this had no statistical significance. Furthermore, the MLR analysis showed that mean temperature and relative humidity have an inversely proportional but statistically significant relationship with maize yield (p = 0.046 and p = 0.001, respectively). The analysis of farmers’ perceptions confirmed the results of trend analyses of decreasing rainfall and increasing maximum temperatures. Moreover, the farmers asserted that the vulnerability of farmers to climate variability is also linked to gender and locality, where women’s outputs are more assailable and farms in low-lying areas are more prone to floods. The high price of farm inputs was also reported as a key factor, other than climate variability, hindering the flourishing of the maize sector in Dschang. Finally, an analysis of the KII indicated the inadequate implementation of flagship agricultural programs in the locality.
    Keyword Climate variability
    Effects
    Maize yield
    Agricultural resilience
    Dschang
    Copyright Holder The Authors
    Copyright Year 2024
    Copyright type Creative commons
    DOI 10.3390/land13091360
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    Created: Tue, 05 Nov 2024, 01:31:22 JST by Aarti Basnyat on behalf of UNU EHS