scholarly journals Factors Influencing the Choice of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies by Households: A Case of Mpolonjeni Area Development Programme (ADP) in Swaziland

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phindile Shongwe ◽  
Micah B. Masuku ◽  
Absalom M. Manyatsi

The increased involvement of food relief agencies nearly on an annual basis is a clear indication that agricultural production continues to decline as a result of climate change. In order to mitigate the negative effect of climate change, households engage on adaptation strategies. The extent to which these impacts are felt depends mostly on the level of adaptation in response to climate change. The main objectives of the study were to identify the adaptation strategies employed by households and to analyse factors influencing the choice of adaptation strategies by households using personal interviews. The study used data from a random sample of 350 households. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression model were used to analyse the data. The results showed that adaptation strategies employed were; drought tolerant varieties, switching crops, irrigation, crop rotation, mulching, minimum tillage, early planting, late planting and intercropping. The results showed that the choice of adaptation strategies by households was significantly (p <0.05) influenced by; age of household head, occupation of household head, being a member of a social group, land category, access to credit, access to extension services and training, high incidences of crop pest and disease, high input prices, high food prices, perceptions of households towards climate change. Moreover, the analysis showed that perceptions of households towards climate change significantly influence all adaptation strategies. However, sex and education level of the household head were insignificant in influencing household choice when adapting to climate change. It is recommended that there is need to educate households about the negative impact of climate change on cropping systems. The study also recommends that agriculture extension services should be strengthened, agriculture financial institutions should accommodate subsistence farmers on communal land and rural micro-finance institutions should be developed, in order to facilitate farmers to choose effective adaptation strategies. 

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Atube ◽  
Geoffrey M. Malinga ◽  
Martine Nyeko ◽  
Daniel M. Okello ◽  
Simon Peter Alarakol ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Climate change poses a threat to the sustainability of food production among small-scale rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa that are dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Understanding farmers’ adaptations and the determinants of their adaptation strategies is crucial in designing realistic strategies and policies for agricultural development and food security. The main objectives of this study were to identify the adaptation strategies used by smallholder farmers to counter the perceived negative effects of climate change in northern Uganda, and factors influencing the use of specific adaptation strategies. A cross-sectional survey research design was employed to collect data from 395 randomly selected smallholder farmers’ household heads across two districts by the administration of a semi-structured questionnaire. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze the factors influencing farmers’ adaptation to climate change. Results The three most widely practiced adaptation strategies were planting of different crop varieties, planting drought-resistant varieties, and fallowing. Results of the binary logit regression model revealed that marital status of household head, access to credit, access to extension services, and farm income influenced farmers’ adoption of planting drought-resistant varieties as an adaptation strategy while access to credit, annual farm income, and time taken to market influenced adoption of planting improved seeds. Gender of household head and farm income had a positive influence on farmers’ adoption of fertilizer and pesticide use. Farming experience, farm income, and access to extension services and credit influenced farmers’ adoption of tree planting. Household size, farming experience, and time taken to market had positive influence on the use of fallowing, while size of land cultivated significantly influenced farmers’ planting of different crop varieties as an adaptation strategy. Conclusion Findings of the study suggest there are several factors that work together to influence adoption of specific adaptation strategies by smallholder farmers. This therefore calls for more effort from government to strengthen the provision of agricultural extension services by improving its climate information system, providing recommended agricultural inputs and training farmers on best agronomic practices to enhance their holistic adaptation to the effect of climate change.


AGROFOR ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adanna HENRI-UKOHA

The study on choice of climate change adaptation strategies practiced by cassavabased farmers was conducted in Southern Nigeria. The following specific objectives were achieved: to ascertain the perceived effects of climate change in the study area and to determine factors influencing the choice of using climate change adaptation strategies by cassava-based farmers in the study area. Data were obtained through the administration of questionnaire to 300 randomly sampled cassava-based farmers in the study area. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, frequencies, percentages and inferential statistics such as Multinomial Logit Regression technique. The result revealed that farmers perceived increase in flood incidence (91.33%), drought (90.67%), high incidence of pests and diseases (55%) and low yield (50%) as the effects of climate change in the study area. Also, from the results, 58% of the farmers chose not to employ the use of climate change adaptation strategies while only 42% decided to choose using climate change adaptation options in the study area. The result also showed that age of the farmer, farming experience, gender, marital status, level of education, household size, access to credit, access to agricultural extension services and membership of association were the factors influencing the choice climate change adaptation strategies used by the farmers. The study concluded that socioeconomic attributes of the farmers affected their choice of climate change adaptation strategies. Policy should be targeted at designing climate change adaptation technology to farmers as well as providing the enabling environment that would encourage them to employ it.


AGROFOR ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatma ARIBI ◽  
Mongi SGHAIER

Climate change is a worldwide environmental issue to all economic sectors, mainly the agricultural sector. Tunisia is one of the countries adversely affected by climate change because of its low adaptive capacity. Adapting to climate threat is the main goal of farmers, who are the primary stakeholders in agriculture, to increase the resilience of their farming systems. Based on a survey between March and May 2018 with 100 agricultural households from the governorate of Medenine, which belongs to Southeast Tunisia, this paper examined the main adaptive measures to climate change used by farmers, the factors influencing their choice of measures and the constraints to adaptation. To explore the factors affecting the choice of adaptive measures, this study employed a multinomial logit regression. Results showed that irrigation, crop diversification, integration of crop with livestock and shifting from farm to non-farm activities were the main adaptive measures implemented by farmers in the study area. Further, the multinomial logit model indicated that the factors influencing the choice of adaptive measures included household head age, access to extension services, household income, number of years of experience of the household head in agriculture, and the distance to the market. The results demonstrated also that adaptation to climate change was hindered by many factors such as constrained resources, lack of money, and water shortage. The findings of this research suggest the need for improving the access to extension services, to water, and to means of production to enhance the resilience of vulnerable agricultural households and to improve their wellbeing.


Author(s):  
Lelethu Mdoda

Climate variability is a global phenomenon and its effects on agricultural productivity have been experienced by developing countries drastically. Climate differences such as high temperatures, drought and long seasons have led to a loss in food production through crop failure, water stress, and human disease outbreak. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate factors influencing farmers’ awareness and choice of adaptation strategies to climate variability by smallholder crop farmers in Libode, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Primary data were purposively collected from 120 smallholder crop farmers. Binary logistic regression was used to estimate factors influencing farmers’ awareness while Multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the choice of adaptation strategies employed by crop farmers. Results showed that farmers have perceived climate change and have adapted to changing climatic conditions. The empirical results have showed that socio-economic factors such as years spent in school, land size, farm experience, and extension services affect farmers' awareness positively while age has a negative influence. Few farmers have adjusted their farming practices to account for the effects of climate change. Thus, the study identifies crop diversification and agroforestry as being the most promising strategies with benefits for farmers, the environment and future generations. The government should develop policies aimed at providing and enhancing farmers’ knowledge on climate change. Farmers are encouraged to form farm organizations and be active as to serve as a platform to share knowledge on indigenous and technological farming practices for effective climate change adaptation.  


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (335) ◽  
pp. 32-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abimbola O. Adepoju ◽  
Precious P. Osunbor

Abstract Climate risks constitute an enormous challenge to poultry production and have affected the livelihoods of the people who depend on them. Thus, farmers have adopted various strategies that can help them cope with the adverse effects of climate change. The aim of this study is to examine the factors influencing small scale poultry farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies to climate change. Data used for this study were obtained from 121 representative farmers selected through a two-stage random sampling procedure. Descriptive Statistics, Likert Scale and the Multinomial Logit Model were the tools used for analysis. Results showed that the mean age and household size of the respondents were 45 years and 5 persons respectively, while the average number of birds per farmer stood at 583 birds. Majority of the respondents had a moderate perception of the impacts of climate change on poultry farming and chose management adaptation strategies in their fight against climate change. Econometric analysis showed that the age, gender and educational status of farmers, number of birds, household size, poultry experience, access to cooperative societies, poultry housing system, access to credit, access to extension services and farm size were the factors influencing farmers’ choice of climate change adaptation strategies in the study area. Therefore, policy should focus on awareness creation on management adaptation strategies through enhancing education and extension services as well as access of poultry farmers to credit facilities to indirectly insure farmers against climate change impacts.


Author(s):  
Jeevan Lamichhane ◽  
Durga Bahadur RanaBhat ◽  
Ankit Koirala ◽  
Dipesh Shrestha

A field survey was conducted to study the factor that determines farmers’ decisions to adapt to climate change in Deurali and Agyouli V.D.Cs of Nawalparasi District. Altogether 180 household, 90 from each V.D.C were selected randomly for the study. A logit regression model was employed in the study. However, in order to measure the magnitude of the impact of the explanatory variables on the decision of the farmer to adapt to climate change marginal effects were computed. The study uses a binary dependent variable taking the value 1 if the farmer adapted to climate change and 0 otherwise. A farmer is considered to have adapted to climate change if he/she has employed at least one of the adaptation strategies such as early and late planting, use of drought resistant crops, zero tillage operation, crop diversification, use of mulching and composting of weeds to control water loss and conserving moisture in the field. This current research considers the following as potential factors determining farmers’ decisions to adapt to climate change; economically active members, education of the household head, farm size, annual cash earnings, access to credit, training and extension. Findings reveal that these factors influence farmers’ decisions to adapt to climate change in Nawalparasi District and marginal effects computed showed that per unit increase in these variables increased the probability of practicing different adaptation strategies by 4.3%, 31.4%, 3%, 1.5%, 17%, 66% respectively. The log likelihood was computed to be -43.45. Psuedo. R2 was calculated to be 39%.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rulia Akhtar ◽  
Muhammad Mehedi Masud ◽  
Rafia Afroz

This article attempts to understand the perception of the rice-growing farmers on the issue of climate change (CC) and identify their adaptive capacity (AC). A survey was conducted through structured questionnaires to understand farmers’ perception and adaptation strategies in response to changing climate and variability. The findings indicate that farmers are moderately adaptive to CC in the study area. The result also revealed that the main barriers are lack of funds and government support available information to CC. Farmers with higher AC can produce greater amount of rice. Rice producers should be enabled through improved extension services, government aid, such as grants, training for better level of adaptability, to help them achieve higher rice production.


Author(s):  
Raissa Sorgho ◽  
Isabel Mank ◽  
Moubassira Kagoné ◽  
Aurélia Souares ◽  
Ina Danquah ◽  
...  

In West Africa, climate change aggravates subsistence farmers’ vulnerability to weather variability to sustain their agricultural and nutritional requirements. For successful adaptation policies, in-depth understanding of farmers’ perceptions about climate change, agriculture, and adaptation strategies is essential. This qualitative study in rural Burkina Faso characterized farmers’ perceptions and knowledge through in-depth interviews. The study enumerated the barriers, possibilities, strategies/practices, and support sources of farmers. There was awareness but limited understanding of climate change amongst farmers. Those unable to adapt, faced increased health difficulties, specifically regarding nutrition and mental health. Farmers could implement some dietary and agricultural adaptation strategies (reduce meal size, frequency and variety, preemptive purchase of cereals, multi-cropping, crop rotation, modified seeds) but were unable to implement others (soil rehabilitation, water management). Barriers to implementation comprised financial and time constraints, material and labor shortages, and inaccessible information. Farmers did not understand, trust or utilize meteorological services, but appreciated and relied on agricultural extension services. They reported that social and governmental support was sporadic and inconsistent. This study uncovers the following targets for climate change adaptation policies in rural Burkina Faso: promoting meteorological services, expanding agricultural extension services, increasing access to financial resources, and framing sustainable adaptation within national development goals.


2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gernot Klepper ◽  
Mareike Lange

AbstractClimate change is one of the grand challenges of this century, but so is the eradication of hunger which is still present for roughly one billion people mainly in tropical countries. Both climate change and climate mitigation have an impact on the availability of food, especially in those regions that are particularly poor. Climate change is expected to affect most strongly the tropical regions thus reducing further the availability of suitable production conditions for agriculture. Climate mitigation can reduce the climate induced risk to food security, at the same time it has also a negative impact on food prices. First of all, climate policies raise the cost of energy which is an important component of the cost of agriculture. More importantly, many countries join the EU in supporting bioenergy production which directly competes with food production thus raising food prices. The world’s poor are most affected by such price increases since they spend most of their income on food products. Thus, increasing food prices directly translate into increasing hunger for those people. The current EU bioenergy policies are not yet strong enough to have a large impact on world markets. However, in the future bioenergy may pose a threat to food security for the poor.


Author(s):  
Aung Tun Oo ◽  
Guido Van Huylenbroeck ◽  
Stijn Speelman

Purpose Climate change negatively affects agricultural crop production in the dry zone region of Myanmar. This paper aims to examine climate change adaptation strategies of farmers in the dry zone region. Farmers’ choice for adaptation strategies is influenced by many factors such as the practical availability and by socioeconomic conditions of the farmers. They are moreover influenced by the perception about climate change and by the specific problems prevailing in the farming systems. Design/methodology/approach This research is carried out in Magwe district in the dry zone region of Myanmar using a random selection of 212 farmers from three Townships (Magwe, Yenanchaung and Chauk). A multinomial logistic regression (MLR) was applied to assess the factors affecting the choice by farmers for adaptation strategies. Findings The study found that in the past, farmers used to apply locally available indigenous climate change adaptation strategies. However, recently, most farmers seem to have shifted to introduced adaptation strategies. The most popular adaptation strategy is to adjust the planting dates and sowing method (56.1 per cent). Furthermore, farmers identified a number of barriers that limit the adoption of adaptation methods. Risk is found to be an important driver of crop diversification. Finally, the MLR model showed that information from radio, access to seeds and extension services affect the choice of adaptation strategies. Originality/value The study shows that adoption of locally available indigenous climate change adaptation methods is gradually decreasing, and there is a shift to introduced adaptation strategies. The study can assist public and private organizations to obtain insight in the determinants of climate change adaptation in the dry zone region of Myanmar.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document