Determinants’ of Farmers´ Perception of Climate Variability and Change and Its Effect on Non-Farm Income Diversification

Alemu Mamire

doi:10.7176/jesd/12-11-04

Abstract

Climate variability and change is now a global phenomenon with growth, poverty, food security, and stability implications. The farmers’ Knowledge and awareness about climatic variability and change are important for income diversification planning. The main objective of this study was to assess the determinants of farmers’ perception of climate variability and change and its effect on income diversification. A multi-stage sampling procedure used to select the sample respondents and the total sample size of the study was 253 households. Descriptive statistics, logit, and probit regression model were used as data analysis techniques. The descriptive statistics analysis results indicated that about 58.10% of farmers believe that temperature in the district had become warmer and also over 70% of respondents were recognized that rainfall volume, pattern, and distribution has changed and 56% of respondents believed heat intensity is increasing. The logit analyses proved that training participation of the household head, gender, age of household head, level of formal education, local institutional fairness, distance to the nearest market, accesses to extension services, local agroecology and existence of legal obstacle from government were found to have significant influence on the probability of farmers to perceive climate variability change. And the probit analyses identified that perception of farmers on climate variability and change was found to have a positive significant influence on the probability of diversifying their income. It is recommended that local institutions should work with accountably and responsibly and the government should review and improve his rules and regulations which are not comfortable for farmers’ livelihood activity. Keywords: Climate Change and Variability, farmersˈ perception non-farm income diversification DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-11-04 Publication date: June 30 th 2021

Highlights

Background of studyClimate variability and change have gained global attention due to its adverse impact on agriculture
The analysis considers the effect of policies and institutions such as fertilizer subsidies, extension services, safety-net and credit on diversification choices
The results revealed that the gender, age, educational level, agro-ecological condition, training participation, access to extension services, distance to nearest market, existence of legal obstacle from government and local institutional fairness have significant relationship with farmers‘ perception to climate variability and change have positively and significantly influenced the perception of the farmers about the change in climate conditions over years

Summary

Introduction

Background of studyClimate variability and change have gained global attention due to its adverse impact on agriculture. Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change due to our dependence on rain-fed agriculture, poor infrastructure, high levels of poverty, and high levels of unemployment. The agricultural sector is especially vulnerable to the adversities of weather and climate since it is rain-fed, done using relatively basic technologies, and on tiny plots of land. People who are already poor and marginalized are struggling to cope with the added burden of increasingly unpredictable weather. It is getting harder and harder for families and communities to bounce back from ever-changing, inconsistent weather affecting their livelihoods, and many have been forced to sell livestock or remove children from school – coping mechanisms that only increase the cycle of vulnerability (OXFAM, 2010)

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Conclusion