Causes and Impacts of Drought Hazards on Crop Production and Food Security in Ghana’s Northern Savanna Ecosystem: A Cause-Effect Analysis
David Baaman Laar
*
Kumbungu Senior High School, Tamale, Ghana.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The impacts of climate change represent an existential threat that disproportionately affect people and places. Some of these impacts are manifesting in various forms with regional dichotomy but most commonly in the form of seasonal variability in rainfall patterns, rise in surface temperatures, among others. To most peasant farmers in developing countries some of these changes are immediately felt on a local scale as they face immediate decline in crop yields owing largely to stochastic but sometimes long-lasting hydro-meteorological events. Using the mixed methods, the author has demonstrated how climate change induced drought occurrences have led to downward trend in crop yields and the seeming food security issues among peasant farmers in Ghana’s northern savanna ecosystem. The study brings to light how available local adaptation and coping solutions only merely represent a microcosm of a losing battle in sustaining livelihoods and eliminating poverty.
Keywords: Climate change, drought, hydro-meteorological events, ENSO events, livelihoods, biodiversity