Climate change is a serious threat to the livelihoods of rural communities, particularly in mountainous areas because they are very sensitive to such changes. In this study, we assessed the household determinants to climate change adaptation drawing from a case study of agricultural adaptation in the Mount Rwenzori area of South Western Uganda. The study identified the major adaptation practices that are adopted by farmers to cope with the impacts of climate change and using available on-farm technologies. A total of 143 smallholder farmers were sampled and interviewed using field based questionnaires, field observations, and key informant interviews. Data was cleaned, entered and analysed using SPSS and Stata software for descriptive statistics. Thereafter, a Multinomial logistic regression model was used to assess the drivers of farmers' choice for adaptation practices, factors influencing the choice of adaptation, and barriers. The major adaptation practices that were identified included; use of different crop varieties, tree planting, soil and water conservation, early and late planting, and furrow irrigation. Discrete choice model results indicated the age of the household head, experience in farming, household size, climate change shocks, land size, use of agricultural inputs, landscape position (location), and crop yield varied significantly (p > 0.05), which influenced farmers' choice of climate change adaptation practices. The main barriers to adaptation included inadequate information on adaptation methods and financial constraints, leading us to conclude that contextual adaptation practices are more desirable for adoption to farmers. Adapting to climate change needs support from government and other stakeholders, however the implementation is more successful when appropriate and suitable choices are employed.

Background: Improved understanding of the influence of climate variability on eating habits is required to manage health outcomes that could be produced. Agriculture production is the main source of income to people in Rufiji district, where communities produce food for household and also for income. Effects of climate variability and weather extremes include occurrence of floods and prolonged dry seasons, which are recently reported to be very frequent in Africa continent, affecting food production. Prolonged dry seasons as well as frequent floods have been reported to destroy cultivated food crops in Rufiji district. However, there is little evidence on climate variability effects on household food security and their eating habits in Tanzania. Therefore, this study assessed the influence of climate variability impacts such as prolonged dry seasons and floods on the eating habits of Tanzanian rural households.Results: Study findings showed that respondents recognized changes in seasonal trends such as rainfall pattern and increase in temperature in the area. Drought and floods reduce food production and cause shortages in households. Low and poor harvest of food crops is the major contributing factor in their farms of rice and maize, the main staple food crops grown amidst prolonged dry seasons. They reported existence of household food shortage which was not there 10 years ago. Participants developed adaptation mechanisms that included reducing food quantity, eating of new meals which were not eaten before as a main meal such as cooked unripe mangoes and stiff porridge. Household members decided to change eating habits as an adaptation strategy to the situation of food shortage. Some discussants acknowledged reducing number of meals, eating two meals a day instead of three or four as it was 10 years ago. Conclusion:Climate variability has led to reduced amount of annual rainfall, thus affecting food productivity and consequently food shortages and changes in dietary habits among the people in Rufiji. Additional research is warranted to assess the impacts of climate variability on nutritional quality of meals.

Highland regions characterized with terraced slopes in East Africa are faced with serious soil and nutrient losses that have affected agricultural productivity. However, limited studies have analysed the soil and nutrient losses on terraced slopes of these humid highland regions. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the effects of climbing beans over the traditional bush beans' cultivation on soil erosion control in Bufundi sub catchment, Kabale District, South-western Uganda. Runoff trap approach was employed to assess erosion and the sites were characterized Original Research Article

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