Crops Responses to Inter-Annual Climate Variability in Agroclimatic Zone of Sub-Saharan Africa

Climate variability has become a decisive factor for the crop yields in Sub-Saharan African countries. Inter-annual variability in rainfall has been the key climatic element that determines the success of agriculture in this region.From an analysis of recent rainfall conditions in West Africa,FAO(2001) concluded that a long-term change in rainfall has occurred in the semi-arid and sub-humid zones of West Africa.Thus,this study aims at assessing the vulnerability of crop yields to inter-annual variability in rainfall in sub-Saharan African countries taking Nigeria as a case study.A time series of the averaged value of the 12-Month Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipita-