Abstract
Agriculture is a major aspect of
the food systems, which is affected by climate variability. This study
assessed the effect of climate variability on rice production in “Office
Riz Ségou” (ORS), Mali from 1980 to 2014. The methods used include
linear and multiple regression analysis of times series data on
hydro-climatic parameters (temperature, rainfall, humidity and river
flow) and descriptive statistics which was used to analyse farmers’
perception and adaptation measures. The results from analysis of
hydro-climatic factors show an increasing trend at 1% significant level
with the exception of rainfall. Correlation between rice production and
hydro-climatic parameters shows that rice production is not directly
dependent on these parameters. Also, there is a weak relationship
between hydro-climatic parameters and rice production. However, the
results of multiple regression analysis show that the effect of
temperature on rice production is significant at 5% while, other
parameters are not significant. Most of the households (86%) considered
drought as the main cause of decrease in rice productivity in ORS while,
55.3% considered deforestation as the main cause of climate change. The
majority of the households (98%) indicated that they do not use any
coping/adaptation strategies to drought but creation of drainage system
and the use of improved seeds were considered as the main adaptation
strategies to flood in the study area.
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