Abstract

The study examined research and outreach capacities on climate change agricultural adaptation in the faculties of agriculture in southeast, Nigeria. One hundred and twenty (120) randomly selected academic staff of faculties of agriculture were used. Data were collected using questionnaire and analyzed by descriptive statistics. The results show poor investment in equipment (18.7%) and human capacity building (25.8%); limited department/faculty (43.3%) and university/university (28.3%) linkages for climate change research and outreach. Only 25.0% of the respondents expressed the existence of outreach and fund for climate change activities. The personal activities of staff were attendance to conference (62.5%), and involvement in researches (91.7%) on climate change. Capacities for research and outreach on climate change were constrained by several factors namely high cost of TV, radio and newspaper adverts (M = 3.44), poor understanding/knowledge of climate change concepts (M = 3.36), limited grant for climate change research (M = 3.35) and others. The study recommends that government should enact favourable policies and institutional supports that could encourage, spur and stimulate capacity acquisition activities in the universities. The university system need to internally put in place activities, strategies and programmes that could attract external aids, collaboration and raise staff interest and motivation to acquire capacity on climate change agricultural adaptation.

Key words: Climate change, university, research, outreach, adaptation, agriculture.