Abstract
Despite increased emphasis targeting climate change adaptation strategies towards the poorer sections of communities, few adoption studies assess the uptake of these practices by these groups in a systematic and comprehensive manner. In this study, we used a combination of participatory rapid approaches and quantitative principal component analysis to determine each household’s wealth status, and to assess the relationship between wealth and the adoption of various agricultural related climate change adaptation strategies. Evidence from a random sample of 1231 households across six districts of Zambia showed that the more well-endowed households than their poorly endowed counter parts, adopted most of the climate change adaptation strategies. The relatively well-endowed households had a high probability of 10.6%, 9.5%, 7.1%, and 5.5% to embrace crop rotation, minimum tillage, fertiliser trees and change crop varieties due to climate change, respectively, than their poorly endowed counter parts. Most, if not all of these strategies require some level of resource investment hence only those households who could afford such resources are most likely to adopt them. The influence of household resource endowment on the uptake of several climate change adaptation strategies call for the subsidising of the relatively poor endowed households to encourage adoption of these strategies among this category of farmers.
Highlights
In recent times climate change has taken centre stage in most parts of the world
The relatively well-endowed households had a high probability of 10.6%, 9.5%, 7.1%, and 5.5% to embrace crop rotation, minimum tillage, fertiliser trees and change crop varieties due to climate change, respectively, than their poorly endowed counter parts
If not all of these strategies require some level of resource investment only those households who could afford such resources are most likely to adopt them
Summary
In recent times climate change has taken centre stage in most parts of the world. In countries like Zambia where the majority of rural communities depend on agriculture, knowing what modifications to agricultural practices have been put in place to cope with climate change could form a good platform in informing policy. Agricultural adaptation strategies could be viewed in the context of new technologies for improving the well being of farmers in the midst of vulgaries associated with climate change. Due to the increasingly high poverty levels of small scale farmers in most developing countries including Zambia (whose poverty level stands at about 60% of total population, World Bank, 2014), policy makers have placed great emphasis on the development and dissemination of new technologies that could improve the well being and enhance food security among the rural poor. The objective of this study was to assess the adoption rates of climate change adaptation strategies between relatively well and poorly resource endowed farming households in rural communities of Zambia. Among the adaptation strategies analysed included; changing crop varieties, changing planting dates, crop diversification, crop rotation, planting of www.ccsenet.org/sar
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