Coping with and Adapting to Climate Change: A Gender Perspective from Smallholder Farming in Ghana

Abstract

Abstract:The negative impacts of climate change on agriculture could erode gains made toward gender equality in Ghana. Much of the literature on gender dimensions of climate change adaptation has focused on assessing differences in coping and adaptation practices of smallholder farmers. Mostly overlooked is whether gender influences influenced perception of effectiveness of adaptation practices and preferences for institutional support for future adaptation. Using key informant interviews, household surveys, and focus group discussions, we address these gaps by exploring coping and adaptation measures adopted by heads of farm households to counter climate change impacts on their livelihood activities and household well-being in the Guinea Savanna agroecological zone in Ghana. Additionally, we assessed the preferred institutional adaptation support of heads of farm households in adapting to future projected impacts. We find that female heads of farm households relied mainly on borrowed money from village savings and loans group as a coping measure; male heads of farm households depended primarily on sales of livestock. Varying planting and harvesting dates, crop diversification, and use of improved crop varieties were the major adaptation strategies adopted by farmers. We argue that provision of dams and/or dugouts, postharvest processing facilities, adaptation capacity-building resources, and improved access to markets and credit could enhance the adaptive capacity of male and female heads of farm households to mitigate projected climate change impacts on their livelihood activities and household well-being.

Intensifying Inequality? Gendered Trends in Commercializing and Diversifying Smallholder Farming Systems in East Africa

“…This is surprising considering the long-standing recognition within feminist studies and the gender and development literature that gender takes its meaning from its intersection with other axes of social difference, including marital status (Carr, 2008;Nightingale, 2011;Ravera et al, 2016;Djoudi et al, 2017). While there is a growing area of quantitative scholarship around gender and climate change (Mason et al, 2014;Perez et al, 2015;Tibesigwa and Visser, 2016;Assan et al, 2018), these studies have used binary household headship as their level of gender data disaggregation and eschewed more in-depth respondent analysis.…”

Theoretical and conceptual framework for gender analysis of attitudes and adaptation mechanisms to climate change for sustainable livelihoods in Uganda

“…Climate change adaptation involves a process through which societies increase their ability to cope with an uncertain future, by taking appropriate action and making the adjustments and changes to reduce the negative impacts of climate change (UNFCCC, 2007). Since gender is not a stable condition, different societies, communities and households adapt to climate change with different approaches depending on their experiences on effects of climate change, their cultures and cultural norms and the gender relations within a household (Assan et al, 2018). The adaptations include ecological, social and economic adjustments in anticipation of or due to actual changes caused by climate change (Ekpo and Agu, 2014;Lwando, 2013;Guloba, 2014b).…”

“…The attitudes and adaption strategies of households to climate change will determine the level of maintaining sustainable livelihoods and management of natural resources. In this regard, households were found to be pivotal in the endeavor to achieve sustainable livelihoods and management of natural resources (Assan et al, 2018). UNdata (2017) defined a household as a basic unit of analysis used in many social, microeconomic and government models.…”

Impact of Climate Change on the Annual Water Balance in a Humid Climate

“…Agriculture is one of the most important socioeconomic sectors in B&H, but at same time a sector mostly affected by climate change (Žurovec et al, 2015). There is an obvious need for planning and implementation of appropriate measures of adaptation to climate change (Zurovec et al, 2017;Assan et al, 2018). In the first place developing of the appropriate irrigation systems should be a preferred option, as well as the development and introduction of varieties resistant to dry climate conditions.…”