Effects of Climate Change on Rice Production in Northern Region, Ghana

The lives of the entire global community are increasingly jeopardized by the effects of climate change. Agriculture which everybody depends on for food is the most highly affected sector. Rice, the second most staple food crop in Ghana has experienced a tremendous decline in yield over the decades in Northern Region of Ghana. Each year, farmers are changing their ways of cultivating rice either consciously or unconsciously. In order to conduct evidence base research, both primary and secondary data were subjected to econometric analyses to empirically determine the evidence of climate change, its effects and farmers' adaptive capacity levels in the study area and Ghana as a whole. The results of the study indicate that climate change is evident. The commonly used adaptation strategy for rice production is the increased in the cultivation of rice near water bodies. On the average, farmers are moderately adaptive to climate change. Also, high adaptive capacity farmers obtain 9 more 50kg bag of paddy rice than low adaptive capacity farmers. From the rice yield regression results, if average annual temperature increases by 10C, rice yield will decrease by 0.15mt/ha.