Assessing the Dynamics of Agropastoral farmers’ Adaptive Capacity to Drought in Uganda’s Cattle Corridor

Abstract

Adaptive capacity provides a pivotal role in resilience building for socio-ecological systems to overcome both natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Persistent droughts increasingly cause abrupt changes in communities’ ability to mobilize scarce resources, anticipate or respond to perceived or current effects over time. This paper examines the factors influencing agropastoral farmers’ adaptive capacity dynamics in the cattle corridor of Uganda, and quantify their relative contributions. Data analysed was derived from a household survey of 426 households randomly and purposively selected from the six districts in the cattle corridor. Agropastoral farmers' adaptive capacity was assessed using the Local Adaptive Capacity (LAC) framework and measured using Principal component Analysis (PCA). Multivariate probit regression model was used to reveal the significant factors influencing adaptive capacity. The study illustrates that farmers' adaptive capacity index was low and variable across the cattle corridor sub-regions, significant indicators were; innovations, asset base, knowledge, and information. Farmers' gender, level of education, land size, off-farm activities, and membership to savings and loan-based associations significantly changed adaptive capacity. This study enlightens stakeholders with better knowledge of adaptive capacity, its component indicators, and factors at the household level. It also provides methodological approaches for assessing adaptive capacity at local level to climate change hazards. The study recommends an integrated application of the knowledge on the underlying factors to help infer innovative approaches and avert the long-term/ expected effects of drought on the context under investigation.