IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON YAM PRODUCTION IN ABUJA, NIGERIA

The study was on yam production in federal Capital Territory (FCT). It aimed at establishing the relationship that exists between rainfall, temperature and yam yield. Two sets of data were collected from agricultural development project of federal capital territory on climatic elements (rainfall and temperature) and yam yield for ten (10) years. The Pearson product-moment correlation techniques were used to determine the relationship between rainfall and yam yield and between temperature and yam yield which were 0.10 and 0.07 respectively. The result showed a positive relationship for both. Using the simple step-wise regression analysis for rainfall and yam yield, applying the same techniques on temperature and yam yield the following questions were derived: rainfall and yam yield __ y = 12.46466- 0.002x. Temperature and yam yield __ y = 6.936-0.24x. With the use of multiple regressions we obtained 0.14 between rainfall, temperature and yam yield is yield. We also discovered that 14% of the proportion variation of yam yield is explained by rain and temperature. The positive relationship obtained between yam and temperature, between yam rainfalls is in agreement with work done previously by other authors. While that of temperature, rainfall and yam is also positive relationship which also agrees with literatures. We recommend that: a more reliable data should be collected and tried again especially on rainfall. Yam yield should be regressed on other environmental factors. Data on temperature, rainfall, compared to eradicate errors. A longer period of data could be collected for better analysis. However, with respect to our present study we concluded that rainfall and temperature has an influence on yam production.