Gender Analysis of Cassava Farmers’ Climate Change Awareness ... 87where Yi= the dependent variable
X 1 ..... X 5 = explanatory variablesYi is polychotomous and expresses the adaptation method to climate
change by the farmers. X 1 ..... X 5 are the explanatory variables. The dependent
variable (Yi) is defined as 1 for no adaptation, 2 for mulching and soil
conservation, 3 for planting of cover crops and trees, 4 for use of acclimated
crop varieties, 5 for change in planting and harvest time while 6 is for
irrigation adapted from (Sofoluwe et al., 2011).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Gender-Based Socioeconomic Characteristics of Cassava
Farmers in the Study Area
Table 1 reveals gender-based socio-economic characteristics of the
cassava farmers in the study area. The results of age distribution from the
Table revealed that male and female cassava famers who were less than 30
years only accounted for 3.88% and 1.11% respectively, while those older than
60 years accounted for 25.56% and 10.56% for male and female cassava
farmers respectively. Generally, majority of the cassava farmers were aged
less than 60 years for both categories. However, there were younger female
cassava farmers than male cassava famers in the study area. The implication of
this is that majority of the cassava were in their actively productive period.
This would be an advantage for cassava production and climate change
adaption in the Niger Delta Nigeria, since economically productive young
farmers are able to combine vim with other characteristics such as education to
achieve high productivity. The results of the marital status distribution of the
respondents indicated that single male cassava farmers represented 9.44% of
the sample while there was none single female cassava farmer in the study
area. Also the proportion of male cassava farmers that were divorced and
separated respectively were 2.78% and 4.45% while those of female cassava
farmers were 12.78% and 10% respectively. The traditional believe of the
people of the study area placed more cultural responsibility on men than on
women hence men have to be economically stable, in order to be able to
finance adequately their homes before getting married which is not usually the