Review on Perception and Adaptation Strategies of Smallholder Farmers’ to Climate Change in Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopian Smallholder farmers is highly vulnerable to climate variability and change due to its great reliance on climate sensetive economy .Different empirical evidence's has put forward about climate change perception and adaptation practices.However, the findings of major studies are highly aggregated and are of little help in addressing local peculiarities of perception and adaptation strategies .While, others were vague to understandand and finally difficult to implement at farm level. Hence ,this paper reviews the empirical literature on smallholder farmers' perceptions and adaptation strategies of climate change in Ethiopia with specific objectives of; to review the Smallholder framers' perception to climate change, to identify climate change adaptation strategies used by Smallholder farmers' and to review factors that determine smallholder farmers choice of climate change adaptation strategies in Ethiopia.This paper was prepared through wide spread review of empirical evidence's. The review found that the majority of farmers in Ethiopia are aware of climate change in average change in temperatures and rainfall pattern with passion of weather extremes such as droughts ,floods,pest and disease manifestation. To deal with up the unfavorable sound effects of climate change, farmers have adopted strategies like crop diversification, using improved varieties, changing planting and harvesting dates, irrigation, planting tree crops, water and soil conservation techniques,switching to non-farm income activities, marketing during forage shock, using drought tolerant breed andfodder preservation.But , preference of adaptation strategies differs from place to place, farms to farms, and households capacity. At household level, most of the empirical evidence revealed Agro-ecological setting, sex, education level, landholding, farm income, non-farm income, livestock ownership, access to credit, extension visit, farmer-to-farmer extension, access to climate information and average distance from home to the farm have significant influence on the choice of climate adaptation strategies.The review result depicted that there is much dearth of empirical evidences regarding livestock sectors so far as much of the research is focused on crop sector's.Therefore, it has been suggested to further investigate deep rooted emperical evidence's on adaptation strategies of livestock sectors and available indigenous knowledge especially in pastoral areas.Further more, there is a need to explore impacts of climate change and single adaptation strategies on livelihood of smallholder's farmers at each farm level autonomously.

Farmer perspectives on understanding rural household behaviour in agricultural decision-making

“…Climate change, undoubtedly, has far-reaching effects on farming. Kenea and Mebratu (2020) corroborate this in their review, revealing that most farmers in Ethiopia are cognizant of climate change impacts and have consequently adopted strategies to mitigate these effects. However, there are a wide range of factors, such as agro-ecological settings, education level, landholding, and farm income, that have an impact on people's preferences for adaptation strategies.…”

“…Agricultural decision-making, particularly within rural households, is complex due to the interplay of various factors, including economic aspects, societal norms, climate change perceptions, and local ecological conditions. Current research has explored areas like technological adoption (Adnan et al, 2019), land use and management practices (Plieninger et al, 2021), and climate change adaptation strategies (Kenea & Mebratu, 2020). However, these often focus on tangible factors while overlooking the nuanced perspectives and experiences of the farmers themselves.…”

Growing Use and Impacts of Chemical Fertilizers and Assessing Alternative Organic Fertilizer Sources in Ethiopia

“…e rapid rise of the human population determines a growing demand for food and water, which results in higher energy usage and, therefore, the use of nonrenewable resources [3,5,6]. In Ethiopia, agriculture is the primary source of human welfare and economic growth [7,8] and the main contributor to the economy. It accounts for about 37% of the gross domestic product of the country and is a source of living for over 70% of the country's population [7,9], and exports are dominated by agricultural products [10].…”