Climate Change Adaptation and Agricultural Livelihoods of Smallholder Farmers

Abstract

Recent global climatic changes have presented challenges to smallholder farmers through increasing temperatures and reduced rainfall. Although agricultural livelihood adaptation to climate change is acknowledged to be important and needed, it occurs in the context of several uncertainties. This chapter discusses agricultural livelihoods and climate change adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers, who are considered to be the most vulnerable group in the rural agricultural sector. The discussion reveals that predictions of climate change impacts attest to progressively severe negative effects in the Global South, including protracted and severe droughts, high mean yearly temperatures, increasing evapo-transpiration and reduced soil moisture content, which are expected to reduce net crop revenues with rippling consequences on farmers’ livelihoods. Farmers have employed several viable strategies, including fertiliser use, farming on fallowed land, irrigation, cultivation of early maturing crops, mixed cropping, crop rotation and changing planting dates, to reduce their livelihood vulnerabilities to climate change effects. However, inadequate adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers and structural issues, such as climate change governance, policies and underlying inequalities, constrain efforts to implement agricultural adaptation strategies to climate change. Addressing these structural challenges and training farmers in climate change adaptation to build their adaptive capacity are required to enable effective uptake of climate change adaptation measures.