PERCEPTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND THEIR DETERMINANTS AMONG THE SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN MACHAKOS COUNTY

Abstract

Climate change is expected to affect the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Machakos County due to their overdependence on rain-fed agriculture. Farmers perception of climate change and variability influences their understanding and management of climate change-induced risks and uncertainties, especially in rain-fed agriculture. The study was carried out to evaluate smallholder farmers awareness and perception of climate change and the factors influencing the perception of climate change in Machakos County. Data was collected from 400 farmers from six locations sampled through a multistage and simple random sampling procedure. The Heckman probit model was fitted to the data to avoid sample selection bias since not every farmer who may perceive climate change responds by adapting. The analysis revealed that 96% of smallholder farmers in Machakos County were aware of climate change, 87.3% perceived that temperature was rising, and 96.8% perceived that rainfall was decreasing. In this regard, the age of the household head, Gender, education, household size, group membership, distance to the nearest input sellers, distance to the closest market access to insurance, land size, off-farm income, access to information on climate change, access to extension services, access to credit, changes in temperature and rainfall were found to have a significant influence on the probability of farmers to perceive and/or adapt to climate change.