Current Research on Geography, Earth Science and Environment Vol. 3

The impacts of climate change represent an existential threat that disproportionately affects people and places. Some of these impacts are manifesting in several ways with regional variability, but most commonly in the form of seasonal erratic rainfall patterns, rise in surface temperatures, and flooding, among others. Ecologically fragile regions of sub-Saharan Africa, including Mali, Senegal, Niger, Chad, and Sudan, are becoming increasingly vulnerable to insufficient rainfall. To most peasant farmers in developing countries, some of these changes are immediately felt on a local scale as they face an immediate decline in crop yields owing largely to stochastic but sometimes long-lasting hydro-meteorological events. Drought has been a major problem confronting peasant farmers not only in the fragile ecological zones in the Sahel region, but also in some communities in the Sudan and Guinea savannah areas. Using mixed methods, the study has demonstrated how climate change-induced drought occurrences have led to a downward trend in crop yields and looming food insecurity issues among peasant farmers in Ghana’s northern savanna ecological belt. The study brings to light how available local adaptation and coping solutions merely represent a microcosm of a losing battle in sustaining livelihoods and eliminating poverty. Further research is needed to explore into access and feasibility of climate-smart strategies that favour the adoption and use of drought-resistant crops and improved crop varieties in the northern savanna ecosystem.