The problem of climate change in Africa has the potential of undermining sustainable development efforts if steps are not taken to respond to its adverse consequences. This study reviews existing and available literature on farmers' perceptions and adaptations to climate change in sub-Sahara Africa.It is evident that the majority of farmers in sub-Sahara Africa are aware of warmer temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns. To respond to these changes, farmers have adopted crop diversification, planting different crop varieties, changing planting and harvesting dates to correspond to the changing pattern of precipitation, irrigation, planting tree crops,water and soil conservation techniques, and switching to non-farm income activities. Years of farming experience, household size, years of education, access to credit facilities, access to extension services and off-farm income are among the signicant determinants of adopting climate change adaptation measures.To enable sub-Sahara African farmers to develop more effective climate change adaptationstrategies,there is the need for African governments to support farmers by providing the necessary resources such as credit, information and extension workers to train farmers on climate change adaptation strategies and technologies, and investing in climate resilient projects like, improving on existing or building new water infrastructure and building climate change monitoring and reporting stations.

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The need for increased agricultural production to meet the growing demand for food, coupled with concerns for environmental sustainability, economic growth and poverty reduction has increased demand on the already scarce water in South Africa. At the same time, because of agriculture's minimal contribution, compared to the industrial and mining sectors, to South Africa's GDP and employment, the call to reallocate water from agriculture to non-agricultural use has been intensified.This study updates the 1998 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for South Africa and uses the computable general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of water reallocation from agriculture to the non-agricultural sectors on output growth, value added at factor cost, which captures the payments from the production sectors to the factors of production, and households' welfare.Using different water reallocation scenarios, the simulation results indicate that water reallocation from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors beyond the level of a market allocation scenario will lead to a decline in sectoral output and a significant deterioration in the welfare of poor households. It thus undermines development efforts aimed at reducing the existing level of poverty in the country.

Most of the climate change models for South Africa predict a reduction in

Using a computable general equilibrium approach, this study investigates the economy-wide impact of reductions in water resources in South Africa due to climate change. The simulation results show a potentially general deterioration in household welfare. Poor households are the most vulnerable. Short-run policy simulations suggest that this vulnerability can be reduced through welfare policies that maintain food consumption levels for households in the two lowest income quintiles.