Smallholder responses to climate anomalies in rural Uganda

Abstract

Recent research suggests that sub-Saharan Africa will be among the regions most affected by the negative social and biophysical ramifications of climate change. Smallholders are anticipated to respond to rising temperatures and precipitation anomalies through on-farm management strategies and diversification into off-farm activities. Few studies have empirically examined the relationship between climate anomalies and rural livelihoods. Our research explores the impact of climate anomalies on farmers' on and off-farm livelihood strategies, considering both annual and decadal climate exposures, the relationship between on and off-farm livelihoods, and the implications of these livelihood strategies for agricultural productivity. To examine these issues, we link gridded climate data to survey data collected in 120 communities from 850 Ugandan households and 2,000 agricultural plots in 2003 and 2013. We find that smallholder livelihoods are responsive to climate exposure over both short and long time scales. Droughts decrease agricultural productivity in the short term and reduce individual livelihood diversification in the long term. Smallholders cope with higher temperatures in the short term, but in the long run, farmers struggle to adapt to above-average temperatures, which lower agricultural productivity and reduce opportunities for diversification. On and off-farm livelihood strategies also appear to operate in parallel, rather than by substituting for one another. These observations suggest that in order to sustain rural livelihoods, new strategies will be necessary if smallholders are to successfully adapt to climate change.

Communities’ Livelihood Vulnerability to Climate Variability in Ethiopia

“…A lower extent of livelihood diversification contributed to lower adaptive capacity in the Guder and Aba Gerima watersheds, possibly because the wider coverage of A. decurrens and khat plantations in these areas reduced the amount of land that could have been used for the production of food crops [48]. Climate variability in the form of drought could have more impact on communities with less diversified livelihood strategies [83]. A study of weather shocks in Ethiopia indicated that off-farm livelihood diversification enhanced the capacity households to cope with climate-related shocks [38].…”

Climate Variability and Child Nutrition: Findings from Sub-Saharan Africa

“…High temperatures and low precipitation are often associated with reductions in the output of many crops and corresponding changes in local and regional food supplies (Nelson et al 2014;Schlenker & Roberts 2009). There is also evidence that climatic change may affect the number of crops planted by smallholders, thereby affecting the nutritional diversity and quality of available food (Call et al 2019;Headey et al 2019;Tobin et al 2019). 1 The implication is that even if the local availability of food remains sufficient in terms of caloric requirements, there may be not be enough nutritious food to maintain a healthy, well-nourished population.…”

“…The characteristics of our sample are described in Table 1 We measure climate variability using data from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit's Time Series (CRUTS). CRUTS is a global dataset of monthly weather conditions (Harris et al 2014) that has been used widely in population-environment research-including in sub-Saharan Africa-and is considered to be highly accurate (Call et al 2019;Eissler et al 2019;Gray & Wise 2016;Los 2015;Randell & Gray 2019;Zhan et al 2013). 5 The CRU data are constructed at 0.5° resolution and are based on statistical interpolations of data from over 4,000 weather stations.…”

Gender differentials on productivity of rice farmers in south-western Nigeria: An Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach

“…Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are likely to be more susceptible to production risks, most of them especially due to increasing incidences of poverty, inadequate technological advancement and over-reliance on rain-fed agriculture (Mulwa, Marenya & Kassie, 2017). In the said regions, people remain largely dependent on agricultural productivity and other natural-resource-based strategies that are vulnerable to risks (Iiyama et al, 2008;Call, Gray & Jagger, 2019).…”