Agriculture and food security under climate change threat in Benin

Abstract

Vulnerability of agriculture to climate change has been a key issue due to its negative effect on human survival. This study aims to determine the effect of climate change on the production of crops to draw the attention of plant breeders on the paramount necessity to breed new varieties that are tolerant to abiotic stress (drought, temperature, salinity and flooding) for the happiness of farmers. Data on the experiments carried out, survey and temperature, and rainfall were used in this work. The results of the study revealed that high temperature caused abortion and drying of flowers, resulting in low yield. CL5 (Solanum pimpinellifolium) was found to be more tolerant to heat. The results also showed that there was increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall due to flooding and violent rainfalls. The result also showed that there was delay in the start of the first rain in the central and northern parts of the country, poor distribution of rainfall across the country, drought pocket during rainy season in the central and northern and flooding in the south. There is need to develop new crop varieties that are tolerant to drought, flooding, salinity and temperature.