Abstract:
Climate variability and recurrent cycle of drought is a greatest challenge which affects the
Ethiopian poor small hold farmers in general and study area in particular. The complex
nature of climate variability and drought aggravates various social and economic problems
due to unpredictable fluctuation of temperature and precipitation in the study area. The
intended goal of this study was to assess climate variability, drought and coping strategies by
small hold farmers in Soro Woreda of Hadiya Zone. A total of 284 sample respondents were
selected by stratified random sampling methods. The data were collected through
questionnaire, focus group discussions, key informant interview and field observation. The
study used climate data from 1998 to 2017 to assess and identify climate variability and
severity of recurrent cycle of drought. The collected data were analyzed and interpreted by
qualitative and quantitative methods such as descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation,
frequency, percentage, Bar graph and pie chart), summary of one way ANOVA and
standardized precipitation index by using statistical package for social science version 20
software. The results show that climate variability and recurrent drought increases from time
to time due to unpredictable variation and fluctuation of temperature and rainfall. The major
identified types of drought were agricultural, metrological and hydrological and it’s
characterized by slow onset, non structural and impact is spread over large geographical
area. In addition to this, identified categories of the drought are near to normal, moderately
dry and extremely dry in the study area. Climate variability and recurrent drought affects crop
and livestock production, increases local community health problems, increase drop out of
students, loss rural small hold farmer’s livelihood income, affects annual income and others
social and economic activities of the rural community in the study area. To cop up with these
impacts local communities used migration to other place, sale livestock production, and use
on-farm and off-farm diversification and income diversification as coping strategies.
Generally, this study recommended that the effective coping strategies and involvement of
different institutional interventions are crucial to minimize and address climate variability and
recurrent cycle of drought in the study area.
