Farmers’ perception on causes, indicators and determinants of climate change in northern Ethiopia: Implication for developing adaptation strategies

Abstract

Even though climate change is recognized as a major challenge for the economic growth of developing counties such as Ethiopia, little information has been documented about climate change from local people perspectives. The objectives of this study are to describe socio-economic, biophysical and institutional characteristics of farmers, and assess the causes, indicators and determinant factors of climate change based on farmers’ perception in northern Ethiopia. Systematic sampling technique was used to select 60 sample household head farmers. The sample farmers were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive, chi-square (χ2) and logistic regression analysis. This study revealed that farmers’ socioeconomic, farm and institutional attributes influence their perception on climate change. Significantly higher proportions of farmer respondents perceived that deforestation (93%) followed by soil degradation (88%) are the main causes of climate change. Higher proportions of the respondents also identified that the most commonly used indicators of climate change are variability in rainfall (92%), erosion rate (90%), temperature (85%) and agricultural outputs (85%). The success of logistic regression model overall prediction is described by model χ2 = 81, p = 0·003, indicating that the independent variables significantly explained the dependent variable. The success of the regression model prediction level is also described by a strong association between the perception of farmers on climate change and the group of the explanatory variables by coefficient of determination of 83%. Among the explanatory variables, access to rain-fed agriculture, experience on soil management and water harvesting structures were significantly important determinants of farmers’ perception on climate change. It is thus suggested that introduction of comprehensive activities tailored to show in-depth examples of local and global causes and indicators of climate change, considering the determinant variables can enable farmers to design suitable adaptation strategies to climate change (.e.g., land-use based on its suitability, intensifying moisture and water harvesting practices, introducing high yield but short season variety, drought, pest and diseases tolerant crop varieties).