DETERMINANTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION STRATEGIES OF SMALLHOLDER FARMERS: THE CASE OF RURAL DIRE DAWA ADMINISTRATION, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Climate change causes a serious problem in Ethiopia in general and more so in the study area where people‟s livelihood depends on subsistence rain-fed farming. Effective adaptation changes in climatic condition are the key to securing resilient smallholder farmers livelihood system. Therefore, this study identified farmers‟ choice of and factors determining adaptation strategies to climate change in Rural Dire Dawa City Administration, Ethiopia which is strictly affected by climate change pressure. For this both primary and secondary data were used for the study. Primary data were collected from a randomly selected 120 sample households through interview and focus group discussions and secondary data were collected from all sources relevant for the study. Descriptive statistics were used to describe farmers‟ adaptation strategies to climate change and an econometric model Multivariate probit model was employed to identify the factors determining households‟ option of adaptation strategies to climate change. The results of the model showed that the likelihood of households to use changing planting period, soil and water conservation practices, change livestock type, income source diversification and growing drought tolerant crops were 30.35% , 35.55 %, 32.92%, 20.23%, and 5.85 %, respectively. The results also indicated that the joint likelihood of using all adaptation strategies was only 2.5 % and the joint likelihood of failure to adopt all of the adaptation strategies was 5.6 %. furthermore, Multivariate probit model sowed that that sex, education level of the household head, access to credit ,access to climate information , access to irrigation water , off/non-farm income, active labor size of the household and market distance have a statistically significant effect on farmers decision on the use of climate adaptation strategies. Therefore, the governments need to support farmers by providing the necessary resources such as credit, information to farmers on climate change adaptation strategies and technologies, along with investing in climate resilient projects by improving on existing or building new water infrastructures.