Prioritising climate coping and adaptation strategies for smallholder farmers in Luvuvhu River Catchment, South Africa

Abstract

Smallholder farmers are highly vulnerable to climate change and require prioritised strategies to minimise the impacts. Challenges faced by smallholder farmers hinder the implementation of coping and adaptation strategies, limiting sustainable agriculture. This study prioritised climate change coping and adaptation strategies and developed a plan to promote implementation by smallholder farmers. Linear additive model of multicriteria decision analysis within CLIMACT Prio tool Excel Spreadsheet was used to prioritise 16 strategies, in consultation with 23 stakeholders. Stakeholders included smallholder farmers, academics, municipal and government officials. Sensitivity analysis was used to determine the effect of changing weights on final ranking of the strategies. Reducing production space to maximise irrigation had the highest score of 1 and rank of 1 while reducing sand mining had the lowest score of 0.82 and rank of 7. Adjusting fertilisers, food preservation, reducing sand mining along river banks, planting high-yielding crop varieties and reducing soil erosion had an equal score of 0.95 and rank of 2. Varying the weight of each criterion did not affect ranking of the strategies. The study found that most strategies had short implementation time frames and were classified as coping strategies. Identified benefits of the prioritised strategies support national, regional and global development goals. The study provided information required for decision support which is an integral part of climate services. It also promotes improvement of relevant stakeholders’ policies and programs to support smallholder farmers.