Abstract
Smallholder farmers in Chimanimani District, Zimbabwe, have grappled for a long time with the effects of climate change despite the locally and externally driven resilience-building initiatives in place. This paper adopts a qualitative approach to explore the encountered adaptation barriers. Smallholder farmers, Agricultural Technical and Extension Services (AGRITEX) officers, and the traditional leadership fraternity were randomly selected from the district’s 22 rural wards as study participants. Data were solicited using focus group discussions and face-to-face interviews that were corroborated by researcher observation methods. The data were analysed using thematic content analysis of key perspectives drawn from smallholder farmers, traditional leaders, and extension officers who work with farmers. What was unveiled is an assortment of barrier dynamics related to climate, finance, infrastructure, generational change, water resources, inefficient bureaucracy, gender inequality, and health barriers. Vensim PLE 7.3 software was used to illustrate barrier components as they act together to cripple smallholder farmers’ efforts to raise their adaptive capacity. Adaptation barriers are complex and, therefore, cannot be addressed using policies that are fragmented. The paper recommends a multidimensional approach by policy makers to analyse adaptive barriers to build more climate resilience within smallholder farmer communities.
Highlights
As climate change continues to take a toll on various global settings, smallholder farmers, in the developing world, increasingly become a vulnerable population group [1]
Barriers to Smallholder Farmers’ Adaptive Practices. Whilst this presentation focusses more on climate change adaptation barriers and their connectedness, our interview and discussion questions began with general topics and later focussed on barriers
The questions had to do with (i) confirmation of the respondent’s awareness of the changing climate; (ii) whether farmers were making efforts to adapt to the changing climate; (iii) the specific factors that were regarded as barriers to the attainment of effective adaptation; and (iv) identification of some drivers of what smallholder farmers regarded as barriers to the climate change adaptation process
Summary
As climate change continues to take a toll on various global settings, smallholder farmers, in the developing world, increasingly become a vulnerable population group [1]. Climate change mitigation comes with high costs and complex challenges such that adaptation to the phenomenon is a viable option [2,3,4]. Adaptation aims to “moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities”. It generally means a shift in livelihood practices meant to cope with newly emerging climatic conditions. It is an ongoing process with no specific endpoint [5]
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