IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON CROP PRODUCTION AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES: THE CASE OF LEMO DISTRICT, HADIYA ZONE, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Climate change is one of many challenges that negatively affect climate-dependent livelihoods. Agriculture in general and smallholder farming in particular is vulnerable to climate variability and change. The study area is potential for wheat and teff production, however, the yield is declining due to the climate change effect. This research aimed to assess the impacts of climate change on teff and wheat production and adaptation strategies implemented by the farmers in Lemo District, Hadiya Zone. This research designed to cross-sectional (one shot) and time series research methods were employed. For this purpose 150 respondents were selected using multy-stage sampling technique from three kebele’s. To collect data, interview schedule, key informant interview and focus group discussions instruments were implemented. Both descriptive statistics and econometric model were employed to analyze the collected data. About 88.%) of the respondents have indicated that the rain fall amount has decreased during the last three decades. Similarly, the meteorology data confirmed that the annual rainfall is declining by a rate of 7.08 mm annually over the past 29 years. The mean annual rain fall was 1143.7 mm and coefficient of variance was 38.2% which means highly variable based on degree of variability. Similarly, 69% of the respondent confirmed an increasing trend in temperature. According to the meteorology data, mean average temperature is increasing by 0.056oC per annum. The teff and wheat producing farmers also found to practice several adaptation options including crop diversification 38.7%, selecting drought tolerant crops 22.6%, planting dates adjustment 30.7%, practicing soil and water conservation 31.3%, and supplemental irrigation 14.7% in response to climate impact on crop production. The marginal multinomial logit model /MNL/ results indicated that the choice of adaptation options used by farmers were significantly (P<0.05) influenced by age, education, farm size, access to extension service, credit and climate information. The overall analysis leads to conclude that despite the presence of awareness on climate change and its likely effects on livelihoods of the farmers, development intervention at local level were not systematically designed to address the problems of the resource poor farmers with regard to climate change effect. Therefore, an urgent need to work on strengthening the existing awareness, and timely dissemination of climate information and introduction and promotion of suitable adaptation option, to overcome the impacts of climate change on crop production.