Migration among Farmers in Delta State, Nigeria: Is it a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy?

From Firenze University Press: Journal of Agriculture and Environment for International Development (JAEID)

Albert Ukaro Ofuoku, Department of Agricultural Economics Extension, Delta State University

Davina Okompu, Department of Agricultural Economics Extension, Delta State University

Movement of people prompted by environmental threats is an age long phenomenon. It has been asserted by many that people in farming communities embark on temporary migration during periods of flood when there are incidents of flooding in such communities. This may be a confirmation of the statement made by Livingstone (2000) which he credited to Hippocrates and Aristotle that the attributes of natural environment are determinants of human habitability of a location, as well as the qualities of the humans that inhabit it. This is indicative of the fact that human beings relocate temporarily or permanently from a location of occupation to better locations where they find comfort as asserted by Bhattaet al. (2015a), Viswanathan and Kumar (2015), Bhatta & Aggarwal (2016), and Jha et al. (2018). Increase in the rate of migration is a consequence of wide differences in income levels and standards of living in developing nations like Nigeria. Harris and Todaro (1970), Lucas (1997), and Stark (1984) have offered theoretical support for this hypothesis of internal migration. Internal migration is vertically and horizontally articulated by Fei and Ranis (1964) as a process that is desirable, through which surplus labour is taken from agricultural occupations and moved to offer cheap labour or manpower for modern industrial state. According to Kohli et al(2011), a nation is most likely to remain in middle income trap, should such a nation fail to create transition from labour –intensive to capital –intensive production.Agriculture is highly dependent on climate factors as it is a climate -sensitive sector that harbours increased labour surplus and it has become one of the contributory factors of internal migration to sectors that are non-climate –sensitive. The model of economic development of Harris and Todaro (1970) articulates some propellers of migration. The fundamental postulation is that migration is prompted by the differential income of rural and urban settlements that is expected as well as income difference.

Lucas (1997) supports this model. However, he went further to opine that comprehension of other pull factors continues to be poor. To buttress this, De Haas (2020) notes that occurrence of migration is significantly dependent on the skill and knowledge level of the migrants as well as the prevailing conditions in the particular economic sectors where they hope to secure employment at home and at the destination. In concept, the new economics of labour migration (NELM) models are different from other models because they incorporate rural risk factor as a determinant of decisions to migrate (Jha et al., 2018). This approach implies that decision to migrate an affair of households instead of that of the lone individual (Jha et al., 2018; Stark and Lucas, 1988; Stark and Bloom, 1985). The NELM model likewise considers migration as a strategy created by a household to maximize expected incomes and reduce risk of failure in consumption by engaging in diversified sources of income by crossing sectors or agricultural zones.Migration of humans is not only necessitated by poverty and social deprivation, but it is as well prompted by climate change (Scheffran et al., 2012; Ofuoku and Chukwuji, 2012). Unfriendly weather conditions, rise in sea level and environmental degradation constitute the important outcomes of climate change. The alterations in these variables are the main causes of long –or short –term internal migration prompted by loss of occupations that are sensitive to climate and poor capacity to adapt to the situation in South Asia (Bhatta and Aggarwa 2016; Kumar and Viswanathan, 2012) and in sub-Sahara Africa, including Nigeria (Ofuoku et al., 2011). As also suggested by Ahmed et al.(2016); Barnett and Webber (2009) suggest that households’ capacity to adapt to climate change depends on diverse factors, which include financial base, social resources, infrastructure, human capital and access to information. To be resilient or be able to adapt, Gray and Mueller (2012) opine that farming households will probably cut down expenditures on goods that are non-essential, access formal and informal credit or depend on assistance from governments.

On the alternative, or in combination with one or more of the earlier suggestions, a farming household may decide to allow a member of the household to move to other locations to engage in alternative sources of income, which is remitted to the household of origin (McLeman and Smith, 2006; Ofuoku, 2017). When or where group –based mitigation activities and spatial coping methods are not on ground, migration becomes a very important climate change adaptation strategy for farming households against the shocks that accompany it (Jha et al., 2018). Shatta et al. (2015) explain that owing to uncertainty surrounding climate –sensitive livelihood activities, farming households embark on diversification of livelihood, which is an important strategy for several economic and environmental constrains. Banerjee et al.(2011) emphasize that remittances are the most glaring of the factors that enhance farming households’ capacities to adapt to conditions of stress. Enhanced income from diversification of sources of livelihood creates room for farming households to increase their capacity to adapt in order to cope with the risk accompanying climate change (Patnaik and Das, 2017; Tripathi 2017; Scheffran et al. 2012; Tacoli, 2009; Larzko and Aghazarm, 2009; Ofuoku, 2019) states that in order to avoid the disastrous consequences of climate change, adaptation has been made a very significant policy option and that one of the adaptation strategies of potent is migration. Since agriculture is the most climate –centered economic activity, it is faced with the highest risk and uncertainties that lead to loss of livelihood. At the national level, farmers first identify or observe alteration in climatic parameters and take to migration as a coping strategy (Stojanov et al, 2016a, 2016b; Patnaik and Das, 2017; Tripathi 2017). At the farm level, farmers constitute the major stakeholders and actors, thus their perceptions about climate change and their socioeconomic attributes, especially of their households, form the major factors propelling their migration. The socioeconomic situations are determinants of the level of vulnerability of farming households to climate –induced economic challenges and social deprivation in spite of the fact that their perception of climate change constitutes a prerequisite for the individual farmer’s adaptation reaction (Jha et al., 2018). Farmers tend to choose to migrate to seek alternative means of livelihood in a situation of risk of crop failure or poor yield owing to the effect of erratic climate outcomes. Migration offers the farmers opportunities to gain knowledge on new technologies and techniques and farm practices to increase their agricultural income as well as enable them to generate defined expected income. Apart from that, the remittances made from those community or zone lowers credit related challenges to adaptation strategies (Patnaik and Narayanan, 2015), thereby enhancing the adaptive and resilience capacities of the home zone.

Having articulated this theoretical background, it is worthwhile to carry out a study on the nexus between migration and climate change in a close context specific way through integration of diverse socioeconomic, cultural, political and developmental variables. There is also the need to unveil the way farmers’ household qualities exert influences on decision to migrate in order to create better informal zonal or regional policies (Upadhyay et al., 2015). This study develops a comprehension of the role played by migration as a strategy for adaptation, for coping with climate alteration as well as attempt to change the course of the argument that “migration is not at all times the consequence off ailure of an individual farmer to adapt effectively to climate change”. It examines the perception of farmers on climate/weather changes and in accordance unveils various cognitive situations that induce farmers’ migration decision during rainy or dry season. Also, the socioeconomic situations of migrating and non-migrating farming households were assessed. The emphasis of this study was to assess the role played by migration in accessing climate and agricultural extension services. It went further to evaluate the contribution made by migration to enhancement of farmers’ coping capacity. Patnaik and Narayanan (2015), Upadhyay et al. (2015), and Muckere et al.(2014) in their studies dwelt on various coping strategies against climate change indicators, particularly excess flooding without including internal migration (temporary or permanent) driven by such events as part of the coping strategies. Thus this study was done in the direction of investigating the role of internal migration while coping with such disasters in the form of excess flood emerging from climate change effect.The questions that need answers include: (i). is internal migration driven by climate change? (ii) If it is driven by climate change, what are the variables that differentiate the households migrating for climate change reasons from households not migrating? It is hence hypothesized that the socioeconomic attributes of farmers do not significantly function in migration driven by climate change.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/jaeid-12076

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